


In Dark Matters

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Anxiety, Dean is good at feelings because that's canon, Dean!whump, Gen, Graphic Violence, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mild Gore, Post-Episode: s10e03 Soul Survivor, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Season/Series 10, background implied Dean/Castiel, could be read as pre-slash or strong friendship, depression and self-harm (though Dean doesn't call it that), hurt!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 06:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10457151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: Canon Divergent after 10x03: Soul Survivor. After being cured, Dean struggles with the emotional pain and the guilt he hadn't been able to feel while he was a demon. He's scared the Mark will take control of him again and deliberately lets himself get injured during cases because he feels like the pain helps him fight the Mark's influence. That doesn't work out indefinitely though, and it's only when Dean finally breaks down under the weight of it all that Sam and Cas notice something is seriously wrong.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've worked on this story for so long and then had to rush so much towards the end that I honestly don't know anymore if I managed to achieve what I wanted with it. Please know that I tried my best, and if you'd let me know whether you enjoyed the story despite the flaws I'm sure it has, it would mean a great deal to me.
> 
> A big shout-out to my artist [dissolving-worlds](http://dissolving-worlds.tumblr.com/) , who not only created two amazing art pieces and a banner for my story but was also incredibly patient and accommodating. If you have a tumblr, please consider liking and/or reblogging her art masterpost [here](http://dissolving-worlds.tumblr.com/post/158863462937/in-dark-matters) !!
> 
> And a second shout-out to my amazing beta reader [Jems](http://onceuponadestiel.tumblr.com/) , who once again went above and beyond the call of duty for me and cheered me on. All remaining mistakes you might find are my own. 
> 
> I also want to thank [Lexa](http://denimwrappednightmare.tumblr.com/) , [Andro](http://androbeaurepaire.tumblr.com/) , [Nina](http://memberoftheangelgarrison.tumblr.com/) , [Kim](http://lost-shoe.tumblr.com/) and [Noelle](http://savingsammyhuntingdestiel.tumblr.com/) , my best friends and biggest cheerleaders, whose love and support has gotten me through many a dark day.
> 
> Another thank you also to [Tina](http://deathswaywardson.tumblr.com/) , [Jenny](http://dustydreamsanddirtyscars.tumblr.com/) and [Emilie](http://hellosaidthemoonisafangirl.tumblr.com/) , for always being so enthusiastic about my writing. It means a great deal to me :)
> 
> One last thing, this fic contains slight spoilers at one point for anyone who watches Black Sails and hasn't seen season three yet. [Lexa](http://denimwrappednightmare.tumblr.com/), if you think I put that in there specifically for you - I did :)

 

 

_the abyss_

_and it smiled at him_

 

 

 

 

 

He's holding his breath.

It's been like this for hours—his shoulders one rigid line of tension, his breath stuttering along with his heart. He doesn't ask what day it is, blocks Sam's every attempt to talk about how long it's been since he woke up in the dungeon. He doesn't go online, doesn't check his phone. Dean doesn't want to know what day it is.

He remembers the date when he crawled out of his own grave. But with _this_ , he doesn't want to look at the date next year, if he's still alive then, and remember how he's feeling right now.

He doesn't feel saved.

It's ungrateful as fuck, so Dean doesn't mention it, doesn't talk with anyone about it. Anyone meaning Sam. Because Sam is the only one around right now, constantly hovering over Dean and asking if he needs anything; more trash food, or a painkiller, or a kitten that would only make him sneeze. They talk, but—no, they don't really talk.

Dean is sitting on his bed now, halfway turned away from the door. He's flexing his left hand, open and closed. Slow and deliberate. He focuses on the movement, tries to let it calm his mind. Dean heard the front door slam shut a while ago, but doesn’t hear it open again. It can't have been Sam, because Sam, for all his quiet worry and watery smiles, wouldn't have left without telling Dean. Certainly wouldn't have left—wouldn't have trusted Dean to be left to his own devices for that long. So Cas must have left. Dean doesn't know how long ago; he's been avoiding looking at the clock.

Dean said, _I'm glad you're here, Cas._

Cas didn't say goodbye.

The movement of his hand—open, close, open, close—falters, and he turns his hand and smoothes the palm over his knee to avoid making a fist. Dean rubs at his forehead with the other hand. He shouldn't have expected Cas to stay just because he'd said that.

His skin feels hot but tacky with cold sweat. Dean rests his head heavily on his hand, squeezes his eyes shut. Breathes. Tries to breathe. His family did what was right. They did what was right. The thing Dean had been was a danger and they eliminated it. Beat it down.

For now.

Because that's… That's the job.

And now the job is done, so... No reason for Cas to stay.

Cas had been powerful enough to protect Sam from him. It had felt safer with him here.

Dean shivers. His body hurts all over.

Fuck, but he's so _afraid_.

Distantly, he becomes aware how the rubbing over his thigh has turned into scratching his nails over it. He glances down at his hand, confused and frustrated, and makes himself stop. Pain is a sluggish feeling as of now, like his body doesn't quite understand yet it's human and vulnerable once again. That pain receptors are a thing. That pain's also got to _stop_.

When Dean woke up in the dungeon, it took him a while to realize that part of the pain he was feeling was his body aching from the purified blood and from him fighting against his chains. Dean had been shaky and unsteady by the time they uncuffed him. They had to heave him up by the armpits and help him to his room. Dean had been so out of it, he didn't even feel embarrassed. Hunger was the next thing he became aware of, the sensation like a fist grinding painfully into his guts, so he had articulated that. But none of the other things. Not the pain and the guilt that came rushing forward the moment he was back. Other feelings, shame and fear, took a while longer but are now creeping in gradually like smoke under a door.

Dean looks down at his right hand, the minute trembling of his fingertips.

In an effort to ground himself, he had looked through his old photos earlier.

It hadn't really worked—it was the past.

Dean's struggle is _now_.

When Cas came in, Dean had attempted to clear the stuff off his bed. He hadn't even really thought about why. Just felt that he should do. Room… for Cas. Or maybe that was just Dean being selfish again.

Because he feels…

Empty.

A sour and tight feeling starts in Dean's guts again; nausea that has been there on and off over the past couple of hours. The food Sam had gotten him he'd almost immediately thrown up again. Sam pestered him for a while about drinking freaking tea, staying hydrated. Dean had just waved him off, disoriented and exhausted, and said he'd go lie down for a bit.

Dean doesn't know how long ago that was. A side effect about living in the bunker is you never know if it's night or day unless you check the time, and Dean isn't doing that. He didn't even try lying down, no matter what he'd told Sam. Dean feels anxious and trapped. He's exhausted, but he needs a distraction. He can't go outside because then he'd know if it was night or day. He doesn't want to know.

He wants to _forget_.

“Dean?”

Dean startles, turns halfway around and looks up wearily. Blinks against the light. He's been sitting in the semi-dark, too nervous to shut off all the lights but feeling like too much of it was hurting his head. Sam is standing in the doorway, frowning and looking confused. Dean hadn't even heard him approach.

Dean tries to smile and to look calm and unconcerned.

“What's up?” He asks, blinking some more against the brighter light of the hallway at Sam's back. Fuck, but he feels feverish.

“I'm gonna go catch some shut-eye, it's almost—”

Dean sucks in a breath. “Don't”, he says, more frantic than he intended to sound, “Don't—don't tell me.”

Sam looks confused, then heartbroken. He must think Dean lost his mind after all.

Maybe he has.

Maybe five minutes from now Dean won't feel the pain anymore, the—the guilt. Maybe this is all the reprieve he gets until his soul turns black again and he checks out permanently.

But Dean can't think about that. Has to tell himself it's going to be okay.

Has to tell himself that this is Sam, his little brother. Sam who took care of the dangerous thing together with Cas. And not a stranger who tricked people into selling their souls to Hell.

God, but Dean never wanted this for Sam. The story wasn't supposed to go like this.

There's a snapping sound and Dean looks up, startled. He must've zoned out at some point because Sam is standing closer now, has just snapped his fingers in front of Dean's face. One corner of Sam's mouth tugs up in a smile that looks anything but genuine.

“Dean, you with me? I asked if you want some water?”

“Uh...”

Dean doesn't know. Does he want water? Does Sam want him to want water? Why is this so confusing?

Dean searches Sam's eyes, tries to smile.

“Sure, why not.”

Sam eyes him for another moment, then kind of nods to himself a little too enthusiastically.

“Right, yeah, be right back.”

Dean looks after him sadly for a moment. He's about to turn away from the door again when he notices he's been absently plucking at the bedspread. Dean flattens his hands on his thighs, wills them to stay still. His lungs burn and he becomes aware he's been holding his breath again, and he makes himself breathe deeply. Sam comes back with the water bottle, leans over and deposits it on the nightstand.

Dean thinks, there's a sink in my room. I could get my own water. I'd just have needed a glass.

But Dean doesn't say any of that.

Sam makes to leave and then hesitates, and Dean looks up at him. His brother makes a face and then motions in front of his mouth. Dean notices for the first time how ugly the shirt is he's wearing. Gray with a weird orange pattern that looks like bad watercolor prints of burning crosses.

“You, uh... You still feeling nauseous?”

Dean swallows and lets his gaze fall to flicker nervously around his room. When he speaks, he makes an effort to sound calm. Why isn't he calm?

“Nah, I think it’s—It’s over.”

The words sound ominous to him and he immediately regrets them. Sam looks a bit dubious but otherwise unfazed. He shrugs, then makes to leave, claps Dean on the shoulder in passing, not as hard as he used to.

“Get some rest, Dean.”

Dean nods, even though Sam already has his back to him. Dean doesn't feel like it, but maybe he should try. To lie down. He doesn't have anywhere to go right now. Doesn't have anything to do. Dean doesn't feel like he deserves to be near Baby just yet, and he doesn't want to wake Sam by roaming the hallways like a lunatic. Again.

Dean shifts, looks at all the empty space beside him on his bed. Maybe he should take a shower first. Have a change of clothes. He was bathed in sweat earlier. He didn't wash out his mouth after puking his guts out.

Yeah. He should do that first.

Dean stands, slowly, braces his right hand on the wall just in case. Fuck, it feels like he is already underwater. His limbs feel like they're weighing a ton.

Slowly and awkwardly, he strips off the clothes he's been wearing. They feel weird sliding over his skin. Maybe because they're tacky with sweat.

Or maybe because he's imagining things.

He avoids looking at his right arm.

Dean feels exposed as soon as he toes off his socks, and quickly shrugs into his robe. Wearing it feels strange, and it shouldn't. Dean used to enjoy wearing his robe. He tries to shoulder past the feeling, to just focus on the task at hand. He shuffles down the hallway and into the shower room.

Silence greets him. He avoids the mirrors.

Dean starts shivering the moment he steps under the water, and the shivers don't stop, even when he cranks up the temperature to almost scalding. Dean leans an arm against the wall and hangs his head, closes his eyes, breathes in the steam.

The Mark on his arm throbs in counter to his heart.

>

Afterwards, Dean only goes back to his room to put some fresh clothes on. He still feels like he doesn't deserve to be near Baby, but he remembers how she looked earlier—because Dean had stopped caring about her—and she doesn't deserve to look like that. Dean has a vague recollection of Sam saying earlier that he was moving the car down to the garage, and that's where Dean finds her.

There's dust and mud splattered up her sides. The windows are dirty and the dashboard is cluttered with all kinds of crap. She looks sad.

Dean lays a palm flat on the roof, smoothes it back and forth a couple of times.

“Baby, I'm so sorry.”

Dean starts by clearing all the junk out of her, then washes the car slowly and methodically. His jeans and t-shirt get soaked all down the front. His right arm, where the puncture wounds were just throbbing dully before, starts aching in earnest. Dean barely notices. Time passes, his heartbeat slows, and he can breathe easier. He's still busy giving the engine a once-over when he becomes aware of his name being called.

Dean lifts his head from where he'd been bent over the hood and looks up in time to see Sam appear in the entry to the garage. Sam sags in relief when he spots Dean and walks over, smiles when he takes in the car's appearance. “Looks good as new.” He rests one hand on his hip and comes to a stop beside Dean, exhaling a relieved sigh, “Finally looks back to normal.”

Dean lets his gaze fall to his grease-streaked hands, forces out a quiet, “Yeah.”

Sam turns fuller towards him, says after a beat, “You're gonna be back to normal in no time too, Dean. You'll see.”

Dean nods, and says he knows, and keeps his head down.

>

Dean is able to sleep later, but he wakes up sad.

That's nothing new, exactly, but it feels worse than it used to. Dean lies there for a while, stares at the ceiling. It's not until he reluctantly drags himself out from under the covers that he notices he left his bedside lamp on.

Sam is sitting in the kitchen with his laptop and a bowl of cereal. He greets Dean with a lazy “Hey” and then goes right back to scrolling.

Dean makes a beeline for the coffee machine, throws a question over his shoulder, “You got anything?”

There's a beat of silence, and then Sam asks, sounding confused, “Anything what?”

Dean turns towards him when the coffee machine sputters to life, frowning, “I mean a case. You got anything?”

Sam raises his eyebrows at him, the disbelief evident in his voice, “A case. Dean, you just—got back. Don't you think you should—”, he gestures vaguely in Dean's direction, “take it easy for a couple days?”

Dean shifts on his feet, busies himself with selecting a cup from a row of cups that all look identical. White with a red pattern around the rim.

“I'm good enough to work.” Dean turns the cup in his hands, keeps his back to Sam. “I gotta—I gotta work, Sam.”

Sam is silent, which finally forces Dean to turn around. When before Sam had looked skeptical, now he looks apprehensive. Almost wary. Dean makes the connection and is quick to shake his head. He tugs the sleeve of his flannel further down his right arm before he can stop himself. “It's not the—the _Thing_ , it's… I'm just going stir-crazy here.”

Dean pauses for a moment, tries to find the right words. If he stays, he fears he will drown in his own guilt. Or try and drown it in booze; and that's just not a good idea for so many reasons.

“I've done enough damage, I gotta do something that feels right.” He rushes the last part out, can't quite manage to look at Sam when he says it. When he finally scrapes together the courage to meet his eyes, Sam is looking at him with something akin to sympathy, but he doesn't contradict Dean.

So there's that.

>

Getting out and doing something does help, at first. The open road ahead and the vibrations of the car around him ease the tension out of Dean's shoulders. The weather is nice for once, and he leaves the windows half down, feeling soothed and calmed.

It's almost enough for him to ignore how the Mark is an increasingly painful ache running from his elbow to his fingertips.

They've found something that's gotta be werewolves up in a National Forest in Grangeville, Idaho. They track them to a cabin, but it's hard to have the element of surprise on your side against beings that can both smell you and hear your heartbeat. They're attacked the moment they're inside. Dean gets one glimpse of the missing couple strung up with cuffs at the back of the room and then one of the wolves is on him, skinny looking but easily twice as strong, claws out and pupils dilated like twin black moons.

Dean knows he needs to finish that one quickly because Sam is at a disadvantage with his injured arm and the couple might not make it much longer.

The wolf lunges at him, but Dean feigns to the right, then stabs upwards with his silver knife. The wolf dodges it, a confident smirk twisting his features. Dean manages to block his next attack, though the impact rattles painfully all the way up his arm. From somewhere deeper in the cabin, Dean can hear a crash and a growl, followed by more sounds of struggle. He forces himself to tune it out.

Dean decides on a different tactic. Stays on the defensive and lets the wolf force him backwards until his back hits the wall. Claws come flying for his throat, and he lets himself drop down to one knee at the last moment, buries his silver knife deep in the wolf's gut and cuts upward.

A pain-filled howl, and hot blood pulses over his hand, filling his head with a strange sensation of vertigo. Dean doesn't have time to dwell on it. He shoves the lifeless body of the wolf off the knife, lets it fall to the side and forces himself back on his feet. The other wolf has his back to Dean, is trying to corner Sam between a wooden shelf and the backdoor.

Dean barrels into the wolf's side and smashes him up against the door. It gives way under their combined weight, splinters off its hinges, and they crash to the ground in a heap.

The wolf pushes Dean off him with a force that momentarily knocks the breath from his lungs, and he rolls away just in time to avoid his claws. Dean attacks the moment he's back on his feet, tries to herd the wolf away from the cabin. His right arm screams at him where he'd blocked the other wolf's attack, a deep pulsating ache he tries to tune out so it doesn't distract him. His breathing is heavy, heartbeat like a drum in his ears. The wolf's claws have nicked Dean's left forearm at some point, drops of blood spattering onto the pine needles and spurring on the monster he is fighting. The wolf lunges forward abruptly, grips Dean by the front of his jacket and slams him up against a tree.

It's in that split second of his back painfully slamming against the tree trunk and the wolf's stinking wet-hot breath hitting his face, his claws nicking the skin over Dean's heart, that Dean's vision goes red and then gray. Aggression rushes through him, boiling over, burning him alive. He sees how the next few seconds will play out like he's watching one of those eerie stop-motion movies.

Time freezes, and then speeds up, and in his mind Dean sees his own hands around the wolf's throat, squeezing tight. A flurry of motion, and then he watches himself bury his silver knife in the wolf's guts, cutting upward, blood and intestines spilling out over his hand. He can feel himself smiling, can feel how the wolf's cry of agony would finally ease his own, would—

With the next beat of his heart, Dean is jolted back into the here and now. He doesn't move, frozen with fear at what will happen if he does. The silver knife slips from his grasp. He stares into the wolf's black dilated pupils.

The wolf hesitates for a second, obviously expecting a feint, but when nothing follows, a cruel smile stretches his mouth. He grabs Dean's right arm and forces it over his head, pressing it against the tree bark, claws sinking deeply into his flesh. Dean hisses with the searing pain, and then the wolf's other hand closes around his throat.

Dean chokes and grapples at the wolf's arm with his left hand, and tries to kick with his legs. Black spots start dancing in his vision while his lungs burn with the need for oxygen. The wolf presses him against the tree, then lifts him higher until his feet kick at air. He uses his grip around Dean's throat to slam his head against the tree. Distantly, Dean thinks he can hear him laughing, throaty and mean, like a hyena.

Dean's head slams against the tree again. His blotchy vision is narrowing down to the smile on the wolf's face. There's ringing in his ears, and it gets louder while his lungs burn him up from the inside.

Then there's a noise like distant thunder, and the vice-like grip around Dean's throat falls abruptly away. Without it holding him up, he crashes painfully to his knees. He manages to hold himself up with his left arm braced against the forest floor and starts to cough violently, his throat staging a protest while air rushes back in. Dean tries and fails to get his legs under him, and then there are hands gripping his shoulders. Sam's voice filters through the ringing in Dean's ears, “Dean, you with me?! _Dean_!”

Dean thinks he nods, and then his head starts pounding brutally. He groans and closes his eyes, tries to lift a hand to his head but his coordination is shot all to hell and he brushes his ear instead. The hands on his shoulders ease him backwards until Dean's propped up against the tree trunk. He lifts his head and gulps in air and then Sam's face is swimming in his vision.

“—right here, okay. I'll be right back. Don't move.”

Dean wants to say he ain't going anywhere, but his throat is sore and starting to feel like it's swelling, and all that he manages is some kind of pathetic wheezing noise. Then Sam is gone and Dean is left staring at the dark gaping hole where he'd crashed through the door with the wolf. He's mostly stopped coughing so breathing is a little easier now. Dean moves his head and stuff starts going in and out of focus. He thinks he hates this cabin. And these woods. The wood paneling of the cabin is so dark it looks like old blood. The trees are too high and their needles are stabbing into his palms.

The lifeless body of the wolf lies crumpled in a heap across from him. Dean can't see his face. There's a hole in the back of the wolf's head. Blood and other bodily fluids have seeped into the forest floor underneath, sticking the pine needles together in clumps. It smells disgusting. It's a sea of red. Dean stares at it. He shivers, then shudders. His heart rate that had just begun to slow down speeds up again as panic spreads through him.

After three tries, Dean manages to coordinate his hand to touch the back of his head. His fingers come away red. Dean stares at them.

There's movement in the corners of his vision, and then Sam crouches down in front of him. He's talking, but Dean has trouble making sense of it. Suddenly the world moves—he's grabbed under the armpits and heaved to his feet. Fingers touch the back of his head and he flinches. Sam is ducking his head, is asking Dean something, judging from the tone of his voice. _Can he walk?_ Dean thinks that was the question, maybe. He doesn't know the answer, but he nods. It makes his head hurt.

Blearily, Dean watches Sam pick up the silver knife that Dean had let fall to the ground earlier. The Mark throbs and burns on Dean's arm. He's hit with the urge to rip the knife out of Sam's hands and digs his nails into his palms.

Sam holds the knife out to him, handle first, and Dean recoils, turns his head away and blinks rapidly. Flexes his hands. His right is sticky with blood.

A hand comes down on Dean's shoulder, and then Sam snaps his fingers in front of Dean's face again. Dean frowns and tries to shift away. He hates it when people do that.

“—ean? You're freaking me out here, say something.”

Dean clears his throat and immediately regrets it because it hurts like hell. “'m just dizzy,” he rasps out. It's not really a lie. He _is_ dizzy, and his head hurts, and his feet are unsteady.

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says. He doesn't sound like he means it. “Let's just get out of here.” Sam makes as if to put Dean's arm over his shoulders and help him walk, but Dean shifts away and limps past him. For one thing, Sam is too freakishly tall to really be of help this way. And then, Dean just doesn't want to be touched right now. He feels too out of it, too volatile. It's better for everyone involved if he just keeps to himself.

The couple that had been strung up in the back stumbles out of the cabin, and Dean feels relieved to see they're both alive. The guy, Lucas, is helping his wife walk. Mona looks pale and shaky, and they both need medical attention as soon as possible, but they're alive.

Of course, because this is Dean's life, he remembers in that moment how Sam told him he thinks Dean does more harm than good. And all Dean's been doing, has only gone towards proving that point.

Lucas looks at him, and then his eyes flicker down to the blood on Dean's hands. He quickly averts his eyes.

>

Dean gives Sam the keys when they finally make it back to the car. Aside from a few bruises, Sam looks fine. Instead of feeling relieved, Dean feels guilty at having been too lost in his own head to check earlier. He scrubs the dried blood off his hands as best as he can so he won't soil Baby's upholstery and wordlessly hands Lucas and Mona the wool blanket from the back. Then he sinks down in the shotgun seat, closes the door, leans back against the seat and tries not to think.

They drop Lucas and Mona off at the Urgent Care on fifty-four. Dean watches them walk away and thinks about how frail they are and how easy it would've been for him to hurt them if he'd lost control. Dean would have liked to say goodbye, to make sure they got inside safe and were taken care of. But for their sake, maybe it's better he didn't.

It's a twenty-hour haul back home. Sam drives for a while and Dean drifts. He fixes himself up half-heartedly the first time they stop, and declares himself good enough to drive. The Mark is quiet but aches faintly like it always does. Dean wonders if it's leaving him alone for the moment because he'd killed that first werewolf and that was enough to satisfy it.

Sam naps while Dean drives. It's just like it's always been, except when they're both awake they don't really talk. Dean concentrates on the road, on the pain at the back of his head, anything so he doesn't have to think.

When they're finally back, the first thing Dean does is take a hot shower to wash the grime off himself. The soap burns in his wounds and the steam makes him feel woozy, but he stays in there for a long time anyway. The warmth is nice, soothing.

The minor concussion Dean has means he's at least got an excuse to just go and lie down in his room and not come out for a while. The thing is that while he's exhausted, he's still too keyed up to sleep, and so ends up with his bedside lamp still on and his phone in his hand, checking his messages.

Or, he would check them if he had any.

Dean doesn't exactly have a lot of friends. Charlie is still in Oz somewhere, and most of the time Dean tries not to think about it because then he'd just worry thinking about everything that could happen to her there.

And Cas… Cas obviously doesn't want to be here. Dean had thought it would mean something to Cas when Dean told him he was glad Cas was here, but it didn't. Thinking about it, Dean feels stupid. He'd been an absolute ass to Cas and Sam, what does he expect? And okay, back then he'd thought that was the Mark changing him, but maybe he's got it all wrong. Maybe it's all Dean.

He lets the phone drop onto his nightstand, chucks down a painkiller with a mouthful of Maker's Mark, and then takes another swig for good measure. He turns off the light and closes his eyes.

>

Booze has always been Dean's friend when his life goes to shit, and his life is almost _always_ shit so booze is almost _always_ his friend. But as Dean should know by now, he doesn't have friends; so he wakes up three hours later, sweat-soaked and out of breath, his throat sore from screaming.

His door is slightly ajar, so his brother probably came to check that Dean wasn't actually dying. Sam probably didn't try and wake him—screaming nightmares aren't exactly new for them.

Dean's heart is still beating like a jackhammer and the Mark aches like it's been branded into his skin and flesh all over again. Dean sits up, and runs a hand through his sweaty hair.

Fuck. He is so _fucked_.

Fumbling for the bottle of Maker's Mark, he's about to screw the cap off when he hesitates. The sloshing liquid inside beckons him, promising numbness and false comfort, and that's exactly what Dean craves. But that also hits pretty damn close to home in regards to how the Mark and the First Blade made him feel in the days before the Mark turned him into that _thing_.

Numb, calm, quiet—it had felt like morphine feels when you've been going out of your mind with pain.

Very slowly, Dean sets the bottle back down. Makes his fingers let go of it.

He wants to drink— _badly_ —but maybe he shouldn't. The bottle's not going to grow legs and disappear on him. He's just going to try and get through this day without a sip of booze, and maybe tomorrow too. It's just an experiment. He can always start drinking again if it doesn't work out.

Dean showers and gets dressed and tells himself the headache he's got is just because he hasn't had coffee yet.

He drags himself into the library and busies himself with research about the Mark even though it's probably futile. Sam joins him at some point and when he asks, Dean says he's fine. He looks like shit and he knows it, and he knows Sam knows it. But Sam doesn't ask again. They don't talk much. Dean's throat is still slightly swollen, and even if it wasn't, what would there be to talk about? _Hey Sam I almost killed you a couple days ago, and sometimes I wished you'd have found a way to kill me instead of turning me back. Good times._

Yeah, no.

Dean makes it through the whole day without even a sip of beer, but at two in the morning, he caves. Times like these, he can't sleep without at least five fingers of whiskey, it's just not possible anymore. Dean feels like shit when he wakes up a couple hours later, exhausted and jittery. He gets up and drinks half a pot of coffee, and tells himself to get through the day, just get through the day.

>

Sam's arm is healed enough that he can take the brace off, and they keep hitting roadblocks in their research about the Mark, so they take on cases again. It eases the air between them somewhat, because work is always more important than personal shit.

Except how there's... _stuff_ , that Dean can't seem to shake.

Like he's staring at the contents of the fridge, contemplating whether he should go buy more milk—they still got half a bottle, but they might run out, and Sam always puts the empty one back in the fridge, and—and the next thing he knows, he's at the sink, _again_ , vigorously washing his hands until the skin is red and raw.

Sam doesn't notice. He might notice Dean's hands shaking occasionally, but it mostly happens when Dean is alone. When he tries to follow one thought to the end and gets lost along the way—that, Sam notices.

“Dude, are you even listening to me?”

“Huh?”

Sam makes an irritated face at him.

“Dean, seriously, what is up with you?”

Dean breathes. He doesn't know how to explain. What to say so Sam won't panic. “I'm—”

Sam makes a cutting motion with his hand, interrupting him. “You're _not_ fine. Okay? I can see it.” He takes a deep breath, and Dean thinks great, here it goes. Nevermind that he wasn't even going to say he was fine. He knows he's not. He doesn't need Sam to tell him that.

Sam plows on, ticking his points off his fingers like he's taking stock of Dean's transgressions. “I know you, Dean, and you're not acting like you. You're off your game at hunts. I never know anymore if _you're_ gonna punch something to death or if it is gonna do that to _you_ because you're distracted. I can't remember the last time I've seen you stuff your face with a burger, and I bet you didn't even notice that waitress in Wichita looking at you like she wanted to eat you alive.”

Sam looks triumphant, if worried. Like Dean is some kind of diseased killer puppy that can't take care of itself. Fuck, okay, Dean's being an asshole again. Sam is just trying to help. It's just. He's torn. It's kind of nice to know that his struggle isn't going unnoticed. It's just how the things Sam did notice... they're superficial.

It's the act that Dean has dropped because it took too much energy. Or because he got lost in his own head so much that he forgot. So it's probably his own fault, but... listening to Sam, Dean feels strangely hollow inside.

Reduced.

But he could be wrong. Maybe that hollowness was there all along because those parts he thinks Sam isn't seeing are just as fake as the rest of Dean's bravado.

Sam is still looking at him expectantly. Suddenly, Dean just wants to go back to bed and spend the rest of the day there. He shrugs.

“Sam, what do you want me to say? It—that whole thing, the Mark, Crowley, being a demon. It—” Dean's throat feels stuffed all of a sudden. It was _shameful_ , would be the truth. Shameful that he let himself sink that low. He swallows, shifts on his chair. Looks down at the table top. At the lore books and files spread out between them like a barrier of strung-together words and sentences that appear authentic but have lost all meaning.

A beat, and then Sam is saying, “I get it, Dean.” He sounds sympathetic.

Dean kind of wants to be angry. Wants to tell Sam that he does not actually get it, because he didn't even get why Dean didn't want to be cured. But he doesn't feel like he's got the right.

“But you know what?” Sam is smiling at him. “We'll figure it out.”

Dean is not sure what that's even supposed to mean. But Sam looks so optimistic. Dean doesn't want to disappoint him.

Stuck between wanting to explain himself and feeling like he can't, Dean just nods.

>

His phone vibrating jolts Dean out of a light sleep. He looks around disoriented. The light's on in his room, his laptop is on his bed, the tiny white LED light blinking in standby mode— _right_ , yeah, after their talk, Dean had retreated to his room. Put on his softest hoodie and sweatpants, made himself what was definitely not a nest on his bed, and rewatched the last episode of _Reina de Corazones_. He remembers his eyes itching all over again at Juanjo telling Susana on his knees that his love for her was not a lie, and then her telling him she was pregnant with triplets, and that thanks to all that stupid violent revenge stuff their babies would grow up without a father, kissing him one last time before leaving while they both cry—but not much after that, so he must have fallen asleep at some point.

His phone is still angrily vibrating at him, and Dean runs a hand through his messed up hair and digs his phone out of his blankets with the other. He squints at the screen.

It's Cas.

Dean swallows, clears his throat. Sits up a bit straighter and swipes his thumb over the screen.

“Cas?”

A soft sigh crackles through the line.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hey buddy,” Dean croaks, then clears his throat again. Switches the phone to his other ear and fusses with the blankets with his now free right hand, even though Cas isn't even here to see how rumpled they are. Even if he were, Cas probably wouldn't care. The last time he was here, Dean cleared one side of his bed, but Cas didn't sit down there, didn't—Dean must have gotten a bit lost in his own head again, because Cas is repeatedly saying his name and the poor guy sounds distressed.

“I'm here—fuck, sorry. Spaced out for a sec.” Dean rubs at his eyes and hunches over. His head hurts. “What's up?”

There's silence on the other end for a moment. Dean thinks he can hear the sound of wind going through a field of corn. He wonders where Cas is.

“Um. Nothing, actually,” Cas says. He sounds downright apologetic about it. Dean frowns. Cas sounds _off_ , and alarm bells start ringing in Dean's head. But before he can say something about it, Cas adds, “You sent me an empty text. I thought you might be in danger.”

Dean is about to protest that he didn't, when he remembers being half asleep and vaguely sad and wanting to rant to someone about how fucked up it was that Susana was going to have to raise three kids on her own just because Juanjo was such a fuck-up. He's got hazy memories of opening a text field and then thinking better of it. It felt silly to bother Cas with something like this.

“Uh, no. No danger.” Dean internally winces. He sounds like an idiot. “Fell asleep on my phone.”

“Oh.”

An awkward silence falls. Dean rubs over his face with his hand. This is ridiculous. They never used to be shy around each other. Or maybe it's just Dean that's a fumbling, embarrassing mess.

“How are you, Dean?”

Dean kind of wants to laugh. Or cry.

He plucks at the bedding, then makes himself stop. Sighs. “Not sure,” he admits. It's the closest to honest as he can bring himself to be. He's _miserable_ , and he's struggling, and he knows it. But saying that would mean he'd want to fix feeling like crap, make it stop, and Dean's not sure he deserves that.

“Okay,” Cas says at length, sounding like he's treading carefully. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Dean does. But the 'yes' won't make it past his throat. Instead, a wave of anxiety crashes over him, and he shudders and has to swallow against the nausea rolling in his gut. There was so much anger and disappointment audible behind Sam's _you don't get to quit_ … Dean curls into himself on the bed again, closes his eyes, swallows everything down until he can get out a reasonably stable “Nah, it's just, same old… y'know?” He aims for a blend of wry and lighthearted and probably falls just south of pathetic, but for some reason Cas swallows the stupid line anyway.

“I see.” He sounds resigned. That alone should tell Dean that his next question is stupid and pointless and selfish, but because he's apparently a masochistic moron, he asks anyway.

“How 'bout you? Haven't, uh, seen you around in a while. You could, you know... Drop by.”

Silence on the other end, and Dean gets that distinct sinking feeling in his gut like he imagines girls in chick flicks do when they ask their crush to go to prom with them and it's obvious they're gonna say no. Except he's not a girl, and he never went to prom, and he should know better than to ask for too much.

“I'm fine, Dean. But I'm afraid I am too busy at the moment. Heaven needs my help with some—minor issues.” He sounds evasive. Dean frowns, his worry rising, and he's about to ask Cas for details when Cas says, sounding hurried all of a sudden, “That said, I should really get going. It was nice to hear from you, Dean.”

Dean barely gets out a “Sure, Cas” before the line goes dead.

He stares at the blank screen for a while until he finally becomes disgusted with himself and chucks his phone off to the side. The Mark is a slow, determined ache on his arm like it always is, and Dean's cold, and he's tired of it. Just tired.

He curls into a ball and shuts his eyes, determined to keep the world away for as long as possible.

>

They're fighting a shifter that's been held captive in an attic her entire life because of what she is, and as soon as she got out she went on a killing spree. Understandable considering the way she was treated, but they still can't let her do that.

Except Sam tells her, “Your life was spared. You should be _grateful_.”

Dean knows she's going to attack now, and when she does, he throws himself at her. He gets punched in the eye and her blade nicks his left arm, and then he empties half a clip in her and it's over.

She's dead and Dean feels sorry for her, but he doesn't know what to reply when Sam asks why one bullet hadn't been enough. Dean doesn't answer and that must be answer enough, because Sam doesn't talk to him for the next two hundred miles.

Dean's killed something and that means he should feel better, but he doesn't. The mere fact that he should feel better because he's killed makes him disgusted with himself. He knows it's the Mark but it doesn't feel like it's the Mark anymore. It's Dean, and the fact that the one thing he's good for is killing things. And he hates himself for it. And he hates how he keeps proving himself right.

His black eye throbs dully with pain, and all Dean can think is, _it's not enough._ He feels tense, on edge, and he avoids Sam as much as he can. He doesn't trust himself not to lash out. Doesn't trust himself, period.

Last time, with the werewolves, he was in more pain after. It made him feel more in control.

It makes a sick kind of sense. If his body is hurt and exhausted, he won't have the energy to hurt anyone.

Dean tells himself he's not doing it on purpose when, on the next hunt, he lets them come in close. Lets them beat on him until Sam is done with the other two and takes out one of them, Dean killing the last one with a clean headshot.

Sam helps him to his feet and frowns and asks if he's okay. Dean nods, which makes his head throb painfully, and says that yeah, it ain't that bad. He's pretty sure a couple of his ribs are broken, and it hurts every time he breathes or bends at the middle, and that makes him feel calm. The pain is sharp and slows him down and it's louder than the ache of the Mark on his arm. It's easier to bear than the guilt he feels every time Sam watches him suspiciously, every time Dean remembers what that hammer had felt like in his hands and exactly what he'd wanted to do with it. It distracts him from the loneliness at night, when Dean lies down on one side of the bed and checks his phone for messages he doesn't have.

He didn't take any painkillers after the thing with the shifter, and he doesn't take any now.

It means he has to bite back a wince or a grimace when Sam is around, but he feels more like himself. Dean knows he's acting off, but he keeps saying he just can't sleep. Which ain't a lie, he really can't. The side with the broken ribs aches no matter how he arranges himself, but that's not really it. Dean is tired all the time but he can't get any rest. His thoughts keep going in circles about everything he's done, about what he should have done differently. It doesn't get him anywhere… but he can't stop doing it.

Sam's lips curl slightly in amusement and he tells Dean to maybe cut back on the caffeine. It's been forever since Dean's seen something even resembling a smile on his brother's face. Which is his fault, so he doesn't correct Sam about the coffee thing. That shit barely affects him anymore.

Their next hunt turns into a stake-out. They split up to cover more ground, and it's a race against time. Dean twists his ankle and pain laces all the way up to his hip with every step. It's cold and it rains the entire night. Dean ends up running, his lungs burning, but it's all for nothing. A kid is dead by the end of the night, and guilt curls up like a poisonous snake in his stomach.

Neither he nor Sam know what to say on the drive back. Dean's developed a rattling cough by the time they're home, but he can't bring himself to care about it. The whiskey burns even more than usual going down, but Dean just, he _can't_ —he's so exhausted he can barely see straight. But he knows he won't forget this little boy. Won’t forget that he'd failed him…

Dean stares at his dark ceiling for what feels like hours. He can't sleep. His ankle is swollen and throbbing painfully and his ribs twinge with pain every time he breathes, but that's not it.

He picks up his phone, and flinches at the bright light when he activates the screen. Then he stares at his contact list for a long moment. He could call Cas. Tell him that he thinks he's not okay, that he needs to talk to someone. But then what? What would he even say? There's nothing Cas could do anyway.

Dean could send a text instead. He does want to know how Cas is doing, how's it going with whatever errands Heaven has him run. Why Dean hasn't heard from him in weeks.

The screen goes dark. Dean lies in the dark and stares at the ceiling and does nothing.

>

The hours crawl by. He tells himself it's the cough that's keeping him awake.

He used to be a better liar.

Finally, Dean gives up. Gets dressed in day clothes again—he doesn't feel comfortable enough to wear his robe anymore—and limps into the kitchen to get the coffee started. His flannel rides up when he reaches up to get the bag out of the cupboard across from the fridge. The Mark looks blood-red and angry in the cold kitchen light. Dean swallows painfully, which, of fucking course, triggers a coughing attack. He rides it out grudgingly. The pain, at least, distracts him from the way the Mark looks powerful and lively against his pale, bruised skin.

>

Sam comes into the kitchen, and when Dean asks him why he's up so early, Sam frowns and tells him that it's seven AM. Dean looks at the tiny clock at the bottom right of his laptop screen, and oh, somehow it's not three in the morning anymore.

Dean tries not to look confused and shifts his attention back to what he's been reading.

Except, he doesn't _know_ what he's been reading.

Sam opens a cupboard, noisily pulling out a bowl and cereal. He spills some milk on the counter and Dean's fingers twitch. Stuff lying around is one thing, but Dean just—he _hates_ it when the kitchen is dirty.

Sam either doesn't notice or doesn't care about the spilled milk, because he dumps a spoon in his bowl and turns back around to Dean, motioning to the laptop, “Case?”

“Uh.” Dean frowns at the screen. He tries to find where he last stopped reading, but nothing at all sounds familiar to him. The words make no sense and his head hurts. “It's—” Dean takes a breath and it goes down the wrong way and then he's hacking out a lung again. It hurts his chest and makes his throat feel like someone's aggressively running sand paper over it and he can't _breathe_.

Sam chuckles but it sounds more worried than amused.

“Dude, take it easy.”

He comes over and awkwardly claps Dean on the back, off-rhythm and hesitant, like he doesn't actually know what to do. Dean remembers smoothing a hand up and down Sam's back when he was five and had a cold. He remembers Sam complaining that Dean's hands were small and weak and nothing like his English teacher's hands, a woman with long blond hair and a warm smile, who had hugged Sam goodbye just two days ago, because they were leaving town again.

Dean shakes his head and waves Sam off. Sam looks exasperated but he does back off, though only to flop down opposite of Dean and turn the laptop around to read the screen.

Sam's brows furrow while his eyes move and he pursues his lips. “Damn. Sounds nasty.”

Dean takes a deliberate breath and nods, tries to sound convincing when he says, “That's what I thought.” It comes out raspy and not convincing at all, but Sam doesn't even look up, just hums in agreement and scrolls further down the page.

Dean curls his fingers around his cold cup of coffee, forces down the last disgusting tasting dregs of it, and stands up, pain lacing from his ankle all the way up to his hip. He ignores it, shifts his weight, claps his hands together. “Right, so... Meet at the car in ten?”

At that, Sam finally looks up. His expression is a blend of surprised and confused, and his eyes are wide in that way he does when he thinks something is really damned obvious and someone else isn't getting it. Which, naturally, only serves to make Dean defensive. He blinks, and scowls, “What?”

Sam's eyebrows only climb higher, and he leans back in his seat, motions with a hand in Dean's direction, a floppy up and down movement. “You, uh, you don't think you should maybe like, rest up?”

Dean can't help it; he instinctively forces the slouch of his spine straight, squares his shoulders, and scowls down at Sam. It's the way Dad told him to stand; feet apart, jaw locked, never backing down. Doing his duty and taking on the responsibility when Dad couldn't be there, because Dean may have been only eight but he wasn't a kid anymore— _you're a man now, Dean, you understand that?_

Sam had never understood that. He didn't get why only Dean got to do grown-up things like practicing with guns and hunting monsters instead of doing homework and going to bed early.

Judging by the skeptic look on his face and his disapproving frown, Sam doesn't get it now either.

Dean crosses his arms in front of his chest and ignores the way his ribs protest the movement. “You said yourself it sounds nasty, right?” It comes out impatient and irritated, which is good, because it means he doesn't sound as weak as he feels. “Nasty means you ain't going alone. End of discussion.” Dean knows he's being a dick, but he can feel the cough itching at the back of his throat and his foot is screaming at him to take weight off it, so he needs to clear this up and get in the car as soon as possible.

Sam narrows his eyes at him and then sets his jaw. “Okay—no.” He closes the lid of Dean's laptop, gets to his feet, his mouth a thin line.

Dean frowns at him. “What—”

“You're not going.” Sam cuts off Dean's protests, his eyes sharp and calculating. “You need _rest,_ Dean, whether you like it or not. And—” Sam falters for a moment, then blows out a decisive breath. “I'm not sure you itching for a hunt is _you_ talking, or the Mark.”

Dean swallows. It hurts, but it's a distant pain compared to the fist around his heart. The Mark always hurts; a distant, nebulous ache except for when it decides to dig its claws in deeper again. Now, Dean feels its presence on his arm as if, despite the flannel covering it, it can be seen from space.

“Sam—” Dean knows he's fighting a losing battle, knows that his brother is right in not trusting him. But instinct is saying, _take control_ , _protect_ , _protect_ , _protect_. He knows things went phenomenally wrong the last time he heeded that instinct, but it's not a switch he can just turn off, and panic is clouding his mind. Panic at the prospect of not being there when Sam needs him.

Fear, at the idea of being left alone with his thoughts.

Ever the traitor, Dean's body makes the decision for him. Except for the rasp in his voice he gets Sam's name out okay, but then his throat closes up and his cough comes back with a vengeance. It's making his eyes water and he doesn't get it—it wasn't that bad last night, but now it's forcing him to bend over his chest and fight for breath.

Sam looks sympathetic but stern when Dean's lungs stop staging a protest, shaking his head and pressing Dean down onto his seat again, “Just focus on getting better, okay?”

Dean forces himself to breathe flatly and keeps a tight hold on his rising fear, staring at the tabletop when he nods, mutely.

Sam sighs and claps him on the shoulder. “I'll be back,” he says, and then he's gone.

>

Dean stays in the kitchen for a while. He switches seats; sits down where Sam sat with his back to the counter and the door in view, so he doesn't have to think about the bread crumbs and spilled milk that's still there.

It's cold, and too quiet. But for a while, it feels like a neutral place to be. Dean's room used to be _safe_ , but now the Mark is in there with him, and so it's not safe anymore. Neither for Dean nor for anybody else. He's given up leaving space on the right side of his bed. He had hoped, on and off, that maybe—but it's better this way. The mere thought of opening himself to somebody and them seeing him for exactly who and what he is makes him feel like he's drowning in shame.

He's turned the laptop back around but keeps having to go back to the beginning of a paragraph and start all over again because the words refuse to make sense. There's something about “ripped to shreds” and “buried alive”, and Dean should be immune to this crap but it sends an icy shiver down his spine. He slams the laptop closed, digs his knuckles into his eyes, and forces in a deep breath. It results in him spending the next three minutes suppressing his cough, and when the urge has passed, his aimless gaze is caught by the coffee machine.

It's making him think of Kevin, and normally Dean tries to keep a tight lid on that box labeled GUILTY in capital letters—not to forget or deny, but in order to function—but his hold on it keeps slipping, the contents spilling out; a violent, red river.

Dean curls one hand into a fist—the arm that bears the Mark—and tries to breathe through the onslaught of emotion. He just, he regrets everything that's happened so _deeply_. He's let down everyone he cares about. Is _still_ letting them down, right now.

Dimly, Dean becomes aware that his breath is hitching, and he struggles to forcefully stop his train of thought. To just stop thinking altogether, but he's never managed that before, and he fails at it now just as he has all the times before.

“No—” It comes out choked, and raspy, but he can suck in some air after he's said it. He presses his hand flat on the tabletop, struggles to feel the wood under his skin. He can't panic, he _can't_. Panic means he's unable to bear something on his own, and he's _got_ to be able to bear this on his own. There's no one to carry this weight for him, and he'd never put it on anybody else. Ever. Dean would have no right to ask for help anyway; not in the face of the awful stuff he's said to Sam when Sam was only trying to save him. Whether there was some truth behind his words or not, he should never have let the Mark drag him down to a place where he'd say those things out loud.

A place where he'd take a hammer to his brother's head and _enjoy_ it.

“No—”

There's ringing in Dean's ears and then shivery pain is racing through his right arm like biting electro shocks. His arm jerks with the agony of it, and the unintentional movement sends his empty cup flying to the floor and splintering to pieces.

The violence of the noise breaks through the ringing, through the blockage in Dean's throat. He's left gasping, shivering, but he's _back_ ; the panic receding.

Dean sits there for a moment longer, fighting to get his breathing back under control and ending up coughing instead. It's okay though, because it's a good distraction. It's _okay_.

Dean pushes himself up on shaky legs, and his ankle screams at him to sit back down. He bumps into the table, pushes himself away from it to get to the door—

There's a distinct crunch, and Dean remembers the ceramic pieces on the floor. Right, they're still there. He's stepped onto one. He should pick them up.

Dean crouches down, clumsily. He keeps a hold on the table with one hand and picks up one of the white, sharp-edged pieces with his right.

Dean means to do it right, but the edges bite into his skin and then suddenly there's blood on the floor. He lets the piece fall with a pain-filled hiss, and it clatters onto the floor again, another part of it splintering off through the impact.

Dean broke it, and he's trying to fix it, and now it _keeps breaking_.

There's a strange noise, and Dean flinches. Distantly, he becomes aware that his face is wet and his vision blurred. The noise sounded like someone sobbing, choking on it.

Dean fumbles to pick up the pieces again, but his hands shake, and it doesn't work. Hot-cold shivers of shame make him want to curl up and hide, and then suddenly everything is white and loud and _angry_.

He's trying so hard, always trying—why can't it ever be enough, why doesn't it just _stop_?!

The next thing Dean knows, he's on his feet. As if from far away, he can hear his ragged breaths, feel the spikes of agony in his left foot. But his surroundings are moving, rushing by… and then he's standing in front of a cabinet, jerking one of the top drawers open impatiently. Fear and panic rise in him again at what's inside, but his anger has taken over—his vision is still blurry and his breaths are a storm in his ears, but his red fingers curl around the handle, and then he's moving again, out of the kitchen, into the hallway.

He almost falls several times on his way down to the dungeon, his shoulder painfully colliding with the wall. Each time, the overwhelming need to just _make it stop_ has him push himself up again. Lets him limp down the rest of the way, braced against the wall, when his left leg keeps crumpling underneath his weight.

Dean's leaving red smears on the secret doors to the dungeon, and he doesn't understand why they're there, only keeps scrabbling at the doors until they part and he half stumbles, half falls inside. He manages two uneven steps and then his body betrays him—he crashes to his knees beside one of the dark, unforgiving walls, two feet away from the devil's trap and the chair and the shackles. The hammer has clattered onto the floor with his fall, and Dean forces himself up on his knees, picks it up again. The hammer is heavy, and his whole arm is shaking, weary with pain, and it makes him so _angry_.

Dean chokes on his breath, his throat on fire, and then he shuts his eyes and turns halfway around and swings the hammer against the dungeon wall.

One swing turns into two, two turns into three, and plaster hits Dean's face and arms, dust chokes him, his vision has turned into a tunnel. He hits the wall again, again. A large piece of brick or mortar breaks off the wall, crumbling into pieces. Dean hears it happen more than he sees it, but it's enough to make his guilt flare up and try to choke him.

Here Dean is, destroying something again.

He _hates_ himself so much.

There's a noise like a snarl or a sob, and then the impact of the hammer hitting the wall rattles through Dean again.

Again.

Again.

The wall won't crumble. It won't go away. It stands there, silent and dark, and won't let him go.

There's that noise again, and then suddenly the hammer isn't in Dean's hands anymore, and he's hitting the unforgiving stone with his bare hands.

There's pain, and his body screaming at him, and Dean wants it to stop but he doesn't know how. He's trying so hard, but it's like the harder he tries, the worse the pain gets. Despair joins his anger, and it fuels him on as much as it's making his mouth taste like salt.

It's getting harder to raise his arms. To make his fingers curl into fists. He slips on something, his shoulder colliding with the wall. Dean presses his forehead against the wall, grits his teeth, pushes and beats with his hands as best as he can, and it still doesn't give way.

Doesn't stop.

He _needs_ to make it stop, needs to—

“Dean!”

Something big and strong wraps hands around Dean's arms, jerking them back. Keeping him from hitting the wall. Dean fights, rears back, but whoever or whatever it is must be stronger than him.

“Dean, what the hell are you doing?! _Dean_!”

The hands release him, and Dean shrinks back, his heart jack-hammering, his breathing ragged and deafeningly loud in his ears. He blinks and still can't see right; there's the vague shape of someone crouched beside him, someone bigger than him. Their hands are held up, empty, and their mouth is moving.

“Jesus, Dean, I think you broke—” Hands reach for him, tug on his wrist, and Dean rips himself away from the touch. He scrambles back and presses his right side against the beaten wall, violently shakes his head. He doesn't want this. He wants for whoever it is to go away and leave him to do what he needs to do.

He hears a thick swallow, and then that voice again, though it sounds strangely threadbare now.

“Okay. Okay, just, don't do anything. I'm gonna go get help, alright?”

Dean doesn't answer. He tries to raise his arms again to hit the wall, but they're shaking so much he can barely lift them before he's forced to give up. A noise of frustration and despair tears itself out of his throat. It hurts making it—it feels like someone shoved a knife down his throat. Dean wants to lift his hands to feel for it, but his fingers won't even bend. He leans more heavily against the wall, his eyes shut, hot tears burning down his cheeks.

He's failed, again.

“—don't _know_ , okay?! He was fine when I left, I—How fast can you be here?”

Dean hears his own hitched breathing, the sniffles he can't stop, and, a little farther away, words spoken in a hushed tone. Most of them don't make any sense to him. Why won't they just leave him be?

There's a beep, and then shuffling. They're coming back, and Dean doesn't want them to. He squeezes his eyes shut more tightly. Suddenly, water drops hit his skin, and he flinches, his heart instantly picking up speed again.

“Sorry, I just... I had to make sure.”

Silence, and Dean fights to breathe evenly.

“Whatever this is, we're gonna fix it, okay, Dean?”

Dean presses his cheek against the rough stone, tries to pretend they're not there. There are some more words, and then whoever it is retreats several feet, starts to pace on and off. Dean concentrates on the pain, because that's a thing he knows, a thing that's true. A _good_ thing. His head is pounding, and his eyes hurt. His breaths rattle weirdly in his chest. His side hurts when he breathes. His right arm is throbbing like there's a hook in his skin, and his knees are aching. There's a sharp pain in his left foot, and spikes of pain race from his fingers all the way up to his shoulders.

He holds onto that pain, and drifts.

>

“—no, not since I called you. He hasn't said a single word either. Cas—I'm not even sure he knows who I _am_.”

Vaguely, Dean becomes aware of the words again. The voice that's saying them breaks through the last word, and, as if from far away, Dean feels like he should do something about that. The urge only briefly rises and then dies again. Whoever they are, they should stay away from him.

“Dean?”

This voice is different. Dean tenses, forces his eyes open, which makes them hurt more. His vision swims, everything going in and out of focus. Someone blue and black and beige colored reaches out a hand to him.

“I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to heal you now, okay?”

Dean turns away, and shakes his head as hard as he can. He remembers the word 'heal'—they want to take his pain away and he can't let them do that. Pain is good, pain means he's safe, it means _they're_ safe.

“Dean—”

“ _No_!” He's not sure if that was his voice—it sounded horrible. But he hears it again, again, as he struggles to scramble backwards, “No, no, no!”

Dean's back hits another wall, and he presses himself into the corner it creates, keeps shaking his head. It's making the voices sound more distorted, but he _has_ to make them understand.

There's shuffling, and then, “Cas, just do it.”

A pause. “No.”

More shuffling, and then the first voice is louder, angry.

“Are you nuts?! Cas, he's not in his right mind, he doesn't know what he's saying!”

“ _Sam_ —!”

The yelling has Dean flinch, and then he tenses up in the hope they didn't notice. There's another pause, and then the second voice continues in a softer tone.

“I'm not healing Dean against his will. I won't—” A heavy swallow, that Dean can barely hear over his too-loud breaths.

The first voice makes a frustrated sound but then sighs.

“Okay, but then he— _Dean_ , if you won't let Cas heal you, you need to let us get you to a hospital. Get you patched up. Do you understand that?”

Dean's first instinct is to shake his head _no, he doesn't understand, doesn't want that._ But the pain he feels in his hands has started to creep past the line of good, safe pain, to not good, unbearable pain. The word hospital stands out among the ones he understood, and it brings with itself a memory of morphine, of not feeling anything at all.

After a long moment of hesitance, Dean nods, with his eyes still closed.

There's a sharp intake of breath. “Okay, that's—does that mean _yes_ to a hospital?”

Dean nods again, not understanding why when he just did so, and then tries to get up. Shifting his weight makes the pain kick up several notches, and all he manages is to tip to the side with a gasp. Black spots further distort his vision when he blinks his eyes open, and then there are two different pairs of hands, heaving him up carefully by the armpits. Dean doesn't want to be touched, but he wants the pain to stop, and he understands that in order for that to happen, he's got to go with them. Nausea is swirling in his gut by the time he's mostly upright, and he feels dizzy and disoriented. The voices have changed into a more soothing tone, and Dean thinks it's okay when he takes the first step. He lifts his right foot, and someone is telling him how good he's doing, but then it's like there's a blade and it's ramming itself into his left foot. He hears a cry, and then he's sinking to the floor, hands grabbing at him, and then, finally, it's dark and silent.

>

The world exists in snatches.

First, there's smell, and he vaguely finds himself wishing there wasn't. It smells like iron, and like something sour and disgusting. It smells like the way his mouth is tasting.

He's lying on his side, but somehow he's also moving. Something is vibrating underneath him in a way that's strangely familiar.

Everything hurts, and he doesn't understand, he had thought they'd make it stop.

“—and also, what are we even going to say?! That he was mugged? They're gonna notice his ribs have been broken for a while, and that— _Jesus_ , how could he not _tell_ me!”

Dean tries to breathe in deeper, to try and get the strength to say _no,_ even though he doesn't know what to. All it does is make him cough, and that hurts so much he instantly regrets trying.

“Dean?” That's the other voice again, but it doesn't make any difference.

He can't answer.

Fingers gently touch his throat, lightly pressing against where his heart is beating erratically.

“Dean?”

The world fades again.

>

There are at least four people trying to hold him down, and even more voices shouting that he doesn't recognize. He doesn't know where the two people who came to him are, why they brought him here. Gave him to these people—these people who clearly do not know what he is, what he's capable of. Dean tries to shout, keeps struggling no matter how much his body screams at him to stop.

He _needs_ them to stay away from him.

“Dean—”

There's the second voice again, but Dean can't see them. Everything is a blur of unfamiliar faces, the light overhead too bright and stabbing into his eyes.

“Dean, you're _safe_ here. No one is going to hurt you, I promise.”

Frustration only makes Dean struggle harder. They don't understand. _He's_ going to hurt _them_ , it's inevitable, he's not strong enough—

Both his arms are being held down, and Dean's trying to kick with his legs. Something pricks him in the neck, and the last of his strength seeps from him. Darkness threatens.

“ _No_ —”

The blur of faces shifts. Dean thinks he recognizes at least one of them. He stares upwards, uncomprehending, betrayed.

“You're safe, Dean.”

He can't keep his eyes open anymore.

>

Pain, and rhythmic beeping, and dim watery light.

He's woken up a couple times to this already, never sure if he's actually awake or not. And every time, a wave of numbness that bizarrely enough did little to actually take his pain away made him go under again.

“—but I don't understand point three. What does it mean that no one can hate you when your gloss game is strong? And what is a Melon Mango Primer? This is very confusing, Dean.”

The words don't make a lot of sense, but Dean recognizes that voice.

His vision is blurred when he first opens his eyes, but then it focuses to blank walls and smooth screens blinking at him from the semi dark. Dean's been rolled onto his side, and Cas is sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair directly in front of him, reading an issue of _Seventeen_ with a frown on his face. He appears to be using his smart phone's LED as a reading light. Dean blinks against the brightness of it, feeling his eyes water.

The cover of the magazine is glossy and there's a lot of pink. In one corner, big enough that it can be seen from space, is printed _How To Kiss: 15 Secrets Good Kissers Know_.

Dean watches Cas turn the page he's on, keeps listening to him.

His mind is hazy, and he can't decide if he's hot or cold. His body hurts all over. He thinks he'd like to sleep again soon.

Cas is reading him something about style advice that he seems to find fascinating and that Dean's mangled brain can't make sense of when there's movement behind Cas, and then another voice is cutting Cas' soothing nonsense off mid-sentence.

“Dean!”

Sam is towering beside his bed, and Dean feels familiar relief at seeing his little brother safe and unharmed. Sam looks weary though, dark bags under his eyes. Immediately, Dean is concerned. Guilty. Whatever happened, he wasn't there for Sam when it went down.

“You're awake! Took you long enough, man.”

Sam is smiling at him. He looks happy. Dean stares up at him, uncomprehending.

“Dean?”

Dean shifts his focus back over to Cas, blinks rapidly against the bright light still held in Cas' hands. It hurts. His visions blurs.

“Cas, I think the light's too bright for him—”

“What? Oh, right. I'm sorry, Dean.”

The light goes out.

“How are you feeling, Dean?”

Something is wrong. Why is he in this room he doesn't know? What are they doing here?

Dean tries to shift on the bed, but a stab of agony through the side he's not lying on makes him gasp. On his next inhale something lodges itself in his throat and makes him cough hoarsely, cutting off his air.

“Dean!”

There's people shouting, and a loud beeping is coming from somewhere, and then suddenly there's a woman in Dean's field of vision, and she's pressing an oxygen mask over his face. “Just breathe, sweetie, it's gonna be okay.”

The darkness is creeping back in. Dean wants to fight it, he does, but he's so tired.

>

The next time Dean wakes up, the mask is gone and he's alone.

He stares at the ceiling without really seeing it for an indeterminate amount of time, until finally the haze in his mind lifts a bit and it gets through to him where he is and why. There's a blurry memory of Sam staring at him with shock and fear written all over his face, and Dean needs to close his eyes against it for a moment, only to immediately open them again because what he sees when he closes them is worse. Shame flashes through him hot and cold.

He's lost it. Again, he was too weak, and Sam and Cas had to pay the price.

Maybe, finally, it was one time too many for them.

It's freezing in his room, and Dean tries to move one hand to tug his blanket higher, but it doesn't really work. He manages to lift his right hand enough to get it in his field of vision, only to realize that two of his fingers have splints attached to them. What little skin he can see of his hand is raw and bruised and swollen. His left hand doesn't have splints, but overall it looks little better. His knuckles are busted up enough that he can barely bend his fingers. His left foot is in a cast.

Staring at his hand, he can feel the phantom impact of his fist hitting the dungeon wall; his knuckles bruising, bleeding, his bones breaking—

His hands start to shake, and he lets them sink down onto the blanket again. Hesitantly, he looks around. The light seems to have been dimmed, and there's the beep of a heartbeat monitor somewhere behind him. It hurts when he tries to turn his head, so he gives up on it. There's also the shifting of a tube under the blanket when he moves his leg, and he decides he definitely does not want to think about what it's doing there.

Lying in this bed, too weak to even turn around, Dean feels small, and mortal.

It's a strange kind of relief.

He gets a couple more moments of quiet and not having to think about anything, and then movement in the corner of his vision makes him look up.

Sam's shirt is wrinkled and he looks very surprised. Almost scared.

Dean wants to asks him what's wrong, but Sam's already stepped closer, peering intently into Dean's eyes like he's about to disappear.

“Dean, do you know who I am?”

He sounds hurt.

Yet another thing Dean doesn't know how to fix.

Dean sighs, tries to look as affronted as possible, “'Course I know who y'are, Sammy.”

Sam visibly sags with relief, his features lightening with a shaky smile.

“It's _Samuel_ ,” Sam gripes, but he doesn't stop smiling. He drags a chair close and pulls out his phone, “I'm gonna tell Cas to get here asap and heal you.”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in.

“Wait, Sam—”

His voice sounds horrible. And the room temperature, which is doing a good impression of the inside of a freezer, is only making trying to talk harder.

Dean struggles to lift himself up a little in the bed. The only thing it gets him is dizziness and his lungs feeling like there's suddenly not enough air.

Sam looks up in alarm.

“Dude, take it easy—”

A concerned frown on his face, Sam reaches for him, his hand hovering over Dean's shoulder like he believes Dean will crumble under the lightest touch. Dean grits his teeth against his rising frustration, lets his head sink onto the pillow again. There's a crunching noise under his ear, as if the damn thing is filled with plastic bags, and he needs to close his eyes and breathe flatly until the room stops spinning.

“Don' need him to heal me,” he finally manages to mumble, opening his eyes in time to see Sam's disbelieving expression morph into a frown of determination.

“No, Dean, listen—” Sam leans closer to him, and fixes Dean with a look, “You've got a pretty high fever. Okay? And you just about escaped getting pneumonia.” He looks almost angry now. “And if you don't get better _soon_ that might still happen. So. _Cas is gonna heal you_ and that's it.”

It's a good thing Dean's panicking, because it gives his voice some strength.

“I don't _want_ that. Sam—”

“Why in the hell not?” Sam stares at him incredulously, his voice rising in volume, seriously not getting it.

Dean licks his dry lips.

“Can't hurt anyone as long as I'm—it helps.”

Sam frowns at him in incomprehension; as if he's spent the last couple months in the Bahamas and missed everything that went down.

“There's no way around the Mark but this.”

Dean forces the words out through his teeth. Talking is exhausting him fast, but that's not the real reason saying this is hard. He'd never meant to spell it out like this. To let anyone know at all. He swallows, halfway hoping his shame might just strangle him and that'd be that.

Sam stares at him a moment longer, and then his eyebrows lift and his expression becomes a blend of understanding and horror.

“There's no—Dean, are you saying you did this _on purpose_?” He gestures wildly at Dean's—well, his everything really.

Dean shrugs weakly, then lifts his injured hands a bit. “Not that. Dunno what... _that_ , was.”

It's the first time they've come close to discussing what got Dean here in the first place.

Sam drags a hand over his face, then looks at Dean, his eyes soft with sympathy and fear. “Yeah, _that_ —you gave us quite a scare, Dean.”

Dean averts his eyes.

“Just—what _happened_?”

He's saved from answering by the arrival of a nurse.

>

The nurse shoos Sam out of the room and then goes on to take Dean's vitals. She has a gentle voice and long brown hair, and her nametag says Kim. She asks Dean some questions that Dean tries his best to answer. It's getting harder to concentrate, the room having decided to go from freezing to boiling.

Or maybe that's just Dean.

A doctor is next. He doesn't look at Dean while he talks, which Dean couldn't care less about, but he's rude to the nurse. Dean decides he doesn't like him.

He likes him even less when he has her prod at his ribs, and plug a second IV into him. Things get hazy for Dean pretty quickly then, and it's kind of nice. The pain is still there, but it's like he's almost disconnected from it. They dim the light and Dean drifts for a while. Sam comes back in at some point, and Dean feigns sleep, even though he knows it makes him a pathetic coward. It's just that Sam has questions, and Dean doesn't want to think about them, or about what the answers might be.  
  
He must really fall asleep at some point, because he wakes to agonizing pain in his right arm and Sam sitting at his bedside. The room is dark, so at first Dean thinks it's a trick of the light, but then he realizes that Sam is holding a knife, and he's got Dean's right arm in a death grip.

“I'm hungry. I'm starving. Dean? I need to eat—”

Dean only gets a second of trying to puzzle out what's going on, and then Sam plunges the knife into his arm, right underneath the crook of his elbow, and cuts deep all the way to his wrist.

The pain is bright and instant and unbearable, and Dean can't help it, he screams. Tries to rip his arm out of Sam's grasp, but Sam, or the thing that looks like him, is so much stronger than him, drags Dean's arm to its mouth, teeth grinding down onto his bones—

There's light stabbing into his eyes, and hands touching him. Dean wants them gone, but he can't drag enough air into his lungs to tell them to go to hell. It's like he's trying to move his limbs through burning hot quick sand.

Something cold touches his forehead, and the face of Nurse Kim swims in his vision. She looks concerned, almost wary. She also seems unharmed, but she might not be. Dean might have hurt her. What if he's hurt her?

He tries to ask, but he's not sure his words all come out in the right order. Nurse Kim smiles at him, as if Dean didn't just almost kill her. He watches helplessly as she adjusts something with his IV, and there's nothing he can do when whatever is running through his veins pulls him under again.  
  
>

His mom sits at his bedside, carding fingers gently through his hair.

She's so beautiful.

He wants to take her hand, but his body is too heavy to even move an inch. Sadness washes over him in a wave. Dean doesn't want her to know his brother just tried to eat him. He doesn't want to see tears in her eyes, doesn't ever want to cause her pain. She deserved so much better than dying in a fire that Dean was too weak to save her from.

Dean stares at her, committing her to memory, until he can't keep his eyes open anymore.

>

“Dean!”

There’s a hand on his shoulder, gently but insistently shaking him. Dean blinks his eyes open and it takes him a moment to remember where he is.

Cas is looking down at him, eyes round with concern. Dean stares at him. He feels relief at seeing his best friend, but he also has to fight down the urge to roll into a ball and hide.

Especially when Cas clears his throat and says, his voice a weird blend of uncertainty and determination, like he knows Dean doesn't want to hear this and yet believes he should, “You, um... You were crying.”

Oh. Dean blinks and yeah, okay. His face is wet.

Great.

“Is it—are you in pain?”

Dean shrugs, awkwardly, with one shoulder. He probably is. And he really doesn't want to talk about what hurts and why, but anything's better than talking about why he can feel his lashes sticking together with moisture.

“'S nothing, Cas.”

Cas visibly hesitates, and then fixes Dean with one of those intense looks of his that Dean's rarely ever managed to look away from.

“Dean, we need to talk.”

Dean swallows.

“You breaking up with me, Cas?”

He immediately internally winces after saying that. Great one, Winchester.

Cas looks taken aback at first, and then exasperated.

“Dean, would you please take this seriously? I—me and Sam, we've been really worried.”

Dean averts his eyes, guilt rising up to sit heavily in his throat.

“We're not angry with you,” Cas continues after a beat, softer. “Dean, we just want to understand. You're obviously suffering, and it's _completely unnecessary_.”

Cas says it so insistently, like he thinks the more conviction he puts into his voice the faster Dean will give his okay to have Cas make him all shiny and new again. Like it's that easy. Like a couple cracked bones are really what makes Dean broken inside.

Before Dean can decide what he wants to say, Sam appears in the doorway, pocketing his phone and looking harried. He brightens when he sees Dean's awake, “Hey, Dean!” His smile turns into a frown when he steps closer though, and Dean looks away quickly, as if that'd make the tear tracks on his face invisible.

“What's wrong?”

He can feel the both of them looking at him, waiting for him to lay all the ugliness that's filling him to the brim out before them. His throat feels strangled.

There's a pause, and them Sam is saying, “Dean, _please_. This is the most lucid I've seen you in _days_. All I know is that I left you at the bunker, and then I turned around because you didn't pick up the phone. And when I found you, you looked like you'd gone through the meat grinder and you didn't _recognize_ me.” Sam takes a breath, then plows on, well-meaning and merciless, “And I thought, when you woke up here, you'd come to your senses—”

Sam trails off, obviously expecting Dean to fill in the blanks. Dean has a brief flashback to kid Sam, rattling out questions almost faster than he could speak. Questions about everything that came to his mind, questions that he'd ask _Dean_ , always expecting an answer, always disappointed and angry when Dean refused or made fun of him to deflect that he either didn't know the answer or plain wanted to shelter Sam from a harsh truth.

Dean swallows. Stares at the empty wall facing his bed whilst he forces out, “Had to find a way to make it stop.” His throat hurts. “The Mark. It just—wouldn't stop.”

Dean has to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment, his breathing harsh in his own ears. The beeping of the heart monitor takes up speed.

“Pain helps. I let them beat me down and it... It helped. Just suddenly—wasn't enough anymore. Couldn't fix anything, it just got worse and worse—” Shame is making his face feel like it's burning. No, scratch that, his whole body feels like his blood is on fire, shaky, hurting all over.

Suddenly, a broad and blessedly cool palm is cupping his cheek, and Dean looks up to see Cas' face swimming in his vision.

“Dean, your fever is spiking again. Let me heal it.” When Dean hesitates, he adds, “ _Just_ the fever. I promise.”

His head pounds. Dean feels an echo of the pain he'd felt during his nightmare shiver through his right arm, and nods. Immediately, light makes him squeeze his eyes shut, and he holds his breath against the disorienting sensation of being healed that rapidly. When the light fades a moment later, he feels a bit dizzy but decidedly less like he's boiling in his own sweat.

Cas takes his hand off Dean's cheek, and Dean shivers. He realizes he misses the contact, and it makes him avoid Cas' eyes.

From somewhere beside Cas, Sam clears his throat.

“Okay, so. Dean—why didn't you let us know it was getting that bad? So we could've done something about it before you had an, um... an _episode_ , like that.”

Sam doesn't call it a mental breakdown, but Dean suspects they're probably all thinking it. He almost gets angry too, even though it's unfair, because he can't see what Cas and Sam could have done to stop this from happening. He knows there's another reason he didn't want to talk about this though, and even now he has to briefly close his eyes and take a deep breath before he can bring himself to say it.

“'Cause I was fucking _ashamed_ , okay?” Dean bites out, not looking at either of them. “Cain resisted this thing for _centuries_ , and I—” He trails off, can't bring himself to keep talking. Silence stretches for a long moment, and it almost makes Dean want to play down what's been happening, how guilt-ridden and world-weary he's been feeling.

“Dean, that's—” Sam's voice sounds thick with emotion, and Dean can't bear it, doesn't want to hear excuses for what he's been doing, or rather, failing to do.

“Sam, just don't.”

Sam grabs a chair and sits down next to Cas, “No, Dean, listen. Forget Cain. Okay? All that matters is that you've tried your best to not let the Mark take control. You've let other people, _bad people_ , hurt you so you wouldn't hurt them! You think a bad person would go to such lengths not to hurt others?”

Dean listens to Sam's earnest words, looks at his hopeful expression, and feels helpless. He wants to believe Sam, badly. But he just can't.

He just doesn't feel like he's the person Sam and Cas think they see when they look at him.

“Dean?”

He's tired. He wants to go home.

“You've done enough, my friend. Let us help you.” Cas' eyes, when Dean scrapes together the courage to look at him, are kind. He's got this way of always making Dean feel safe, even with just his presence.

Dean thinks of the nurse, of everyone that's come in here tending to him, and how he's putting them at risk. He looks down at his hands, tries to flex his broken fingers, flinches at the pain. Swallows.

“I wanna go home.”

>

Dean only allows Cas to heal his cough and whatever's been wrong with his lungs, and a couple hours later, he signs himself out AMA.

The doctor looks at him disapprovingly, and even more disapprovingly at Cas and Sam hovering behind him where Dean's sitting in the wheelchair the nurse insisted on. He rattles off a bunch of stuff about how they're supposed to care for Dean's mangled hands but Dean's not really listening.

In the parking lot, Sam helps Dean limp to the car—the ground is wet and Dean doesn't feel like trying out the crutches they've given him. Apparently he'd walked himself into a hairline fracture, but he's decided not to think about what that means just yet.

Baby looks sad. Her windshield is covered in rain drops and there's mud all splattered up her sides.

Dean absently stares at the dashboard while Sam drives, ignores his little brother's concerned sideways glances at him. The Continental is just behind them, and somewhere at the back of Dean's mind it calms him to know that Cas will be there at least for a little while.

Out of the unforgiving artificial light of his hospital room, his hands still look distinctively repulsive.

Dean's used to fixing stuff with his hands. He's built up Baby from the ground so many times by now.

It's going to be a bitch to do everything with his left. That's such a small thing considering everything else that's going on, but Dean has a moment of utter despair where he feels like there is no way that he can do this.

“You want me to put some music on?”

There's nothing but corn fields and empty highway to see. All scenery he is utterly used to, but now, the emptiness and seemingly endless repetition of it makes him shiver.

Sam's hand is already about to turn the knob on the radio when Dean shifts in his seat and suppresses a hiss at the pain that shoots up his side.

“No.”

Sam throws him a surprised look, but Dean turns his face away.

>

It's just fifteen miles from Smith County Memorial Hospital to the bunker, but by the time Sam pulls up in front of the door, Dean is exhausted. He still fights Sam until he grudgingly lets Dean hobble down the stairs under his own steam.

Dean only takes one of the crutches Sam offers him, and only because he's really not sure if he'd get to his room without using the wall as support the entire time. He ignores the way it's making him look like Dr. House, as well as the concerned looks on Sam and Cas' faces. Dean just… He can't bear them looking at him right now.

He focuses on his feet, on the sound of the stupid crutch and the stupid walking boot hitting the bunker floor, until he gets to his room. The door clicks shut behind him, and then he sits down heavily on his bed. He leans the crutch against the mattress but it slides to the floor with a clutter that makes Dean flinch.

His body is pounding with the loss of morphine, and Dean misses it already, except he knows he really shouldn't; it's what started this whole mess after all.

Looking at his crutch on the floor makes Dean think of his nurse, and the stab of guilt that he maybe hurt her or any of the others makes him curl over his chest. She didn't look hurt when he saw her last, but he can't be sure. He should call the hospital. Ask. Try and make amends if he—if he—  
  
His breathing has grown ragged, but it's like he's trying to breathe in a vacuum. He curls his hands into fists in an effort to get back control, but the broken ones can't curl, they only hurt. Dean swallows, and closes his eyes, and swallows again.

There's a sudden knock on his door, and he flinches, heart triple-timing in his chest.

“Dean, can I come in?”

He blinks rapidly and holds his breath, too afraid of what he might say if he opens his mouth. There's a drawn out moment of silence from the other side of the door, and Dean feels torn between relief and panic that Cas may have given up and left.

“Dean, I'm coming in.”

There's the sound of the door opening and shutting, and Dean turns his head away and to the wall, closes his eyes, breathes as shallowly as possible.

Cas audibly hesitates, but then Dean hears him coming nearer. There's the sound of Cas picking up Dean's abandoned crutch, and leaning it against something else, maybe his desk. Then there are footsteps again, and the rustling of fabric, and the mattress dips beside him.

The entire time, Dean does his best not to make a sound. Cas is silent for now as well, but Dean can feel him looking at him.

“Is it the Mark?”

The breath punches out of Dean, and he curls further over his chest, struggling and failing to hold back the hurt he's feeling and that's doing its damnest to break out of him.

“The hospital—” Dean starts to fumble for his phone, but his one more or less functioning hand is shaky and clumsy, and oh fuck his voice sounds wrecked and like he's about to cry, “I gotta—I gotta call them.”

“Why, what's wrong?” Cas sounds alarmed, and Dean finally gets his phone out of his pocket, only for it to clatter onto the floor. A noise forces itself out of Dean's mouth that sounds pathetically like a sob.

“It's okay, it's okay... I've got it.” At the edge of his blurry vision, Dean can make out Cas picking up his phone. A wave of anger and frustration rushes through Dean, followed by guilt. He doesn't want anyone telling him it's okay; _nothing_ is okay. He rubs the palms of his hands erratically over his thighs, barely noticing the pain, struggling to calm himself down.

“I gotta call them—I, I gotta know—Kim, the nurse, I gotta know if I _hurt_ her.” His already roughened voice breaks halfway through, and he clams his mouth shut, refuses to turn his head and look at Cas.

Cas is silent for a beat, but then there's the sound of Dean's phone waking up, and a moment later, the dialing tone. Cas has put it on speaker.

Dean doesn't know if it's a good or a bad sign that Cas didn't tell him himself if he hurt the nurse . He closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe flatly, so they won't hear him on the other end of the line.

“Smith County Memorial Hospital, how can I help you?”

Dean tunes out whatever lie Cas spins to get Dean's nurse on the phone, all his energy going into keeping it together as long as possible. Finally, there's Kim's kind voice coming through the line, and Cas falters for a moment before plowing on.

“Thank you for taking the time for this, Mrs Hale. My, um, my friend, Dean, who was recently a patient of yours, is concerned that when he—he's concerned that he might have accidentally hurt you in some way.”

A beat of silence on the other end, and Dean braces himself.

“Is Mr Allman— _Dean_ , are you there?”

Cas hesitates, and Dean feels Cas looking at him. He swallows painfully and manages the tiniest nod.

“He's here.”

“Dean? Listen to me, please. I have been doing this job for well over a decade. I can tell the difference between aggression and fear. And you, when you were brought in, and during your episode, you were _terrified_. You were trying to protect yourself, and I admit it was a struggle, but you did _not_ hurt any of us. And even if you had, the ones who did this to you, _they'd_ be the ones at fault. Okay?”

She sounds so earnest.

Dean wants to shake his head, wants to argue, because _he_ did this to himself, and so he _is_ the one at fault after all. But his throat is so strangled at this point that he can't get out a single word.

Cas seems to get it, because Dean hears him say his thank yous and then suddenly it's silent except for Dean's uneven breathing.

“Dean—” Cas’ voice is full of compassion, and Dean can't take it. He wishes Cas would just leave him, but at the same time the last thing he wants right now is to be alone. Literally everybody else gets along just fine on their own, but they're saddled with Dean, the fuck-up who can't bear loneliness, and it constantly gets people hurt.

Dean's eyes are wet, and he turns his face further away, but it's too late, the tears already dripping off his chin.

“Oh, Dean—” Suddenly, Cas' hand is on his shoulder, the grip hesitant at first and then becoming firmer. Dean doesn't know why that's what does it, but he crumbles into himself, breaths harsh and shuddering. In an effort to hide, he moves blindly and curls up against the headboard. It makes his body protest, but he's spiraling down too fast to really notice. It also dislodges Cas' hand from his shoulder, and Dean shudders with the loss of the first positive physical contact he's had in what feels like yet another lifetime. But then Cas' hand is back on his upper arm, and when Dean doesn't protest, Cas lets it stay there. Humiliation is making Dean's face burn where he's got it hidden from view, but he doesn't have the energy anymore to hold the tears at bay.

>  
  
Dean remembers being about five or six, and crying his eyes out about something. He remembers John's heavy hand on his shoulder, and how his father's broad frame had blocked out the Impala's headlights behind him as he towered over Dean.

“Okay, that's enough now. Think of what Sammy'd think if he saw you right now. He'd get scared, Dean. He'd get scared that something's wrong and that you can't protect him. Do you want Sammy to be scared, Dean?”

Dean's father had sounded disappointed, and worried, and a little bit angry. Dean shook his head as hard as he could. _No_ , of course he doesn't want that. He held his breath and bit his lip as hard as he could until the pain made the stupid sobs stop. Then he scrubbed at his face with his hands, scrubbed the wet away and probably smeared dirt all over his face. But that would be good; so Sammy wouldn’t see.

“That's my man.” His father sounded proud now. He clapped Dean on the shoulder, and it hurt a bit because that's where he'd fallen during practice earlier. But it doesn't matter, because Dean just did something right.

Dean trailed his father back to the car, and tried to suppress how the cold night air made him shiver under his shirt. His father was right of course—Dean remembered how scared _he_ had been when his father had come home three days ago, swaying from side to side, and sat down heavily on the table with his head in his hands, making noises almost like Sammy did when he was upset. Dean had hugged him and told him it was okay, but obviously something was not okay, and yeah, that was scary. Dean absolutely does not want Sammy to feel that way.

He bit his lip again while they drove back. Just in case.

>

The overwhelming sadness has finally ebbed away, and Dean is left feeling embarrassed and drained. He can feel dried tears and snot on his face, and _ugh_ , no. His body is stiff and achy all over when he slowly uncurls himself. Cas takes his hand off his shoulder, and Dean avoids any and all eye contact with him while he hobbles over to the sink and thoroughly scrubs his face and hands clean.  
  
He catches sight of himself in the mirror when he straightens, and, yep. He looks like crap. He'd shaved with a disposable razor in his hospital room's tiny cramped bathroom, needing to at least have control over his appearance while it felt that all other control was slipping away from him. But his hair needs a wash, the cuts on his forehead have barely healed and his skin looks blotchy, and he desperately needs out of this situation that is leaving him feeling raw and bare. His skin is prickling, and his fingers twitch. Dean turns around halfway towards Cas, not looking up further than Cas' shoes, holding onto the sink for balance.

“Gonna, um. Grab a shower.”

He's gonna need plastic bags or some shit for his foot. And his right hand. Fuck, he hates broken bones. But hey, can't punch anyone with a broken hand, right? But the thought doesn't give him the comfort he had hoped for.

Cas stands. Dean steadfastly refuses to lift his eyes from the floor.

Cas seems to hesitate, but then all he says is, “Of course, Dean.” He's opened the door and is about to step outside by the time Dean shifts his weight and manages to lift his gaze up enough to at least see Cas' shoulders. If Dean took one step closer, they'd be close enough for Cas to wrap his arms around him, help Dean hold himself together. But there's this Thing on Dean's arm, and it's got other ideas. Now that the sadness has faded, the empty space is rapidly getting filled by aimless anger, by the desire to make something _pay_ for hurting him that deeply.

Dean breathes through the nauseating rush of it, stomps on it, pushes it down, _down_.

“Cas?”

Cas pauses in the doorway. Dean shifts a bit more of his weight onto his injured foot, concentrates on the pain to keep the irrational anger in check. He lets go of the sink to fiddle with his hands, the splints making the already awkward move more awkward.

“Thanks, for, um…” Dean fumbles for words, can't find them. Finally, he just clears his throat and helplessly repeats himself. “Thanks.”

Since he's still staring at the floor like a scolded boy, Dean can't see Cas's face.

“You don't need to thank me, Dean.”

Okay. Cas sounds... _fond_. That's, well… Dean shifts again, feeling his face heat. He risks looking up, and Cas _looks_ just as fond as he'd sounded. Dean shrugs awkwardly, clearing his throat, “You gonna hang around for a while?”

Cas visibly hesitates, and Dean's heart sinks into his knees. And is then revived when Cas says “I think I ought to, yes,” with one of those quirky half-smiles of his that always make Dean feels weirdly fuzzy inside.

Dean finds himself smiling as well before he knows it, “Always good to have you here, Cas.” And then Cas looks uncomfortable and Dean feels awkward all over again, because that's the almost exact same thing he'd told Cas the last time he was here, and then Cas left, but Dean didn't mean to make him feel bad, he just missed him, and okay, fuck, he needs out of this situation now.

“Right, um, I'm just gonna—” He points down the hall, in the _opposite_ direction of the showers, great. Except Cas either hasn't been around often enough to notice, or doesn't care. He pointedly looks at Dean's right hand and his foot, and asks, “Maybe Sam should assist you?”

Dean splutters, because _Jesus_ , no. He'd changed baby Sam's diapers, and bathed Sam when he was a kid, but thinking of Sam helping him shower, even if they both kept their underwear on—it's just, _no_. He'd be okay with helping Sam, but the other way around just feels plain wrong.

Cas rolls his eyes and sighs, making his you-humans-make-everything-so-unnecessarily-complicated face, and then starts down the hall in the direction of the library.

Dean rolls his eyes at Cas rolling his eyes, even though Cas can't even see him anymore, and then snatches the stupid crutch from where it's leaning against his desk and limps over to his drawer. He'd really like to put on some comfort clothes after the shower, like his hoodie, something big and warm and soft. But he knows a conversation with Sam and Cas is inevitable at this point; he owes it to them, and he needs armor for that. So jeans, and a shirt, and maybe another shirt over that shirt as well. Especially because the clothes he's wearing right now are the same ones he'd worn four days ago when he went over the rails, and there's still his own blood splattered on them.

The thought makes the Mark throb painfully and the irrational anger spike, and so Dean concentrates on selecting something to wear and not getting his splints caught when he slides the drawer shut.

>

As expected, showering is a bitch. It's not like Dean isn't used to working around injuries like this, but he just, he _hates_ knowing parts of him aren't getting one hundred percent clean. A fact that doesn't help with the aimless aggression the Mark is trying to set aflame within him, and Dean has a hard time suppressing the urge to slam his hand against the tile wall and wreck another couple fingers, just to feel something break under his fist.

When he's done scrubbing angrily on his skin, he leans an arm against the wall and hangs his head and just lets the water pound down on him. His dick hangs limp and pale between his legs, and he could touch himself, but like all too often lately, he finds he's not really in the mood. He's starting to think that even when he did want sex over the last couple of months, what he's really wanted was companionship. Someone to not judge him for wanting to be handled with care. Someone who'd still be there in the morning.

Dean closes his eyes, just stands there and breathes in the hot damn shower air until the water grows tepid, and his good leg is trembling from holding up almost all his weight.

Toweling off is a slow and frustrating struggle, as is getting dressed. His right is almost useless, and his left hurts the longer he uses it.

Dean is torn. His injuries make him feel somewhat more in control, but on the other hand—this is so selfish. He's of no use to anyone like this.

He rubs a thumb over the Mark, shivers with the pain the light touch ignites. His skin smells clean, and feels clean, and looks clean, but inside, he still feels dirty.

The urge to scrub at his skin rises all over again, and Dean distracts himself with getting dressed the rest of the way until it ebbs away. He knows that if he heeds it, one thing will ultimately lead to another until he loses himself completely, to demonism or self-destruction or both, and he can't go down either of those roads again.

Sam and Cas are both in the library when Dean slowly hobbles his way inside, Sam sitting at the end of one of the long tables, Cas leaned against one of the boulders opposite him. They've obviously been talking, but with the stupid crutch, Dean can be heard from a mile away. Dean avoids their sympathetic looks and stares at the floor the entire way to the table, sinks awkwardly onto a chair and fiddles with the crutch in his grip. He stares at the tabletop when he says, “Alright, let's hear it.”

He can almost hear Cas frown to his right; and to his left, Sam shifts in his chair. His brother sounds confused when he says, “Hear what?”

Dean scoffs. “The You're An Idiot Dean Speech, what else?” He internally winces right after saying it, because he hadn't meant to sound so bitter. This is his own fault. But the feeling that he's being judged continues to eat at him anyway.

“That's not what—” Sam blows out a breath, leans forward in his chair. “Dean, this isn't _on_ you. If anything, it's on Crowley for bringing you to Cain in the first place.”

Dean opens his mouth to protest; Crowley may be many things, but he didn't _make_ Dean do anything. Sam overrides him though, “No, Dean, listen. I've been there. Okay?” He spreads his hands, looking at Dean intensely as if willing him to understand. “Having that much power at your hands? It's tempting.” He hesitates for a moment, then plows on. “I think there's a part of you that _wants_ to give in to the Mark. And that's why it's been getting worse.”

Dean sits frozen. Distantly, he can feel the color draining from his face, the dull ache of his fingers holding onto his clutch too tightly. “That's what you—” He sounds like he's being strangled. Dean stares at Sam and then up at Cas, and they're both looking at him with that blend of sympathy and wariness. Like they're just waiting for poor mad Dean to foam at the mouth and charge at them.

“ _That's_ what you think? That this is some—some _power trip_?”

“Dean—”

“No.” Dean shoves his chair back with his good foot, stumbles to standing. He bumps into the chair and almost loses his balance. Both Cas and Sam make as if to help him, and Dean snarls, “No!” They look hurt at his refusal, and for some reason that's what finally tips Dean over. Instead of turning around and hobbling back to his room to hide, he stands his ground, glaring at them.

“This _Thing_ —” He yanks his shirt sleeve up his arm, exposing the Mark, “Is doing its _damnest_ to make me wanna stab whoever happens to be in my line of sight! And you think I—you think I fucking _enjoy_ being filled with so much rage I could choke on it?!”

His voice is rising, and Sam and Cas look at him with a mix of shock and guilt, but Dean can't bring himself to feel bad.

He takes a deep breath, his voice even now, but hoarse. “What _tempts_ me”, he says, self-loathing spreading through him in a sick rush, “Is that it makes everything quiet. _Everything_. And yes, I know it makes me one sick son of a bitch to find peace in being cursed.”

His throat is stuffed with everything else he wants to say, suffocating his voice. His eyes burn. He can no longer look at his family and stares at the tabletop instead, shame and lingering anger heating his cheeks and simmering in his gut.

A heavy silence settles over them for a long, drawn-out moment. Instead of it making Dean feel awkward, he just feels tired. Drained. But if he walked away now, it would just make everything worse. He's gotta see this through.

He can hear Sam swallow thickly, and then the scrape of his chair as he stands and hesitantly draws Dean into a hug. “Dean, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed—I'm sorry.”

Sam sounds truly regretful, and he's clinging to Dean, hands fisted in the back of his shirt, the same way he used to do as a kid when he had a nightmare and sought comfort from Dean.

Dean is still angry and so he doesn't say anything, but he curls the arm that isn't holding onto his crutch for balance around Sam anyway.

Sam squeezes his shoulder when he steps back, and Dean can't meet his eyes.

Sam is saying, “You know what, I'm uh, starving. You good with pizza?”

Well, that's better than Sam offering to cook. He sucks at it. Or maybe it's Dean's fault for never insisting he learn for himself to do it. For keeping on providing for Sam, because it's what Dean knows.

Dean isn't hungry, but he nods, allowing Sam the out that it is.

Sam claps him on the shoulder, “Be right back,”, and then hurries past him and out the library.

Dean remains standing, staring at the table, until there's the sound of the bunker door shutting behind Sam. And then he still doesn't look up, because Cas is still there, and he's been quiet this entire time, and Dean doesn't know what that means.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?” he croaks, still not daring to look up.

There's shuffling, and from the corner of his vision, Dean can see Cas step closer to him.

“I'm sorry as well.”

Dean's head snap up, and he finds Cas looking at him with soft eyes, regret evident in his expression. Cas takes another step closer and then hesitates, reaching for Dean but stopping short of touching him, “Can I...?”

It takes Dean a moment to realize Cas is asking if he can hug Dean as well, and, _Jesus_. His heart speeds up, and he nods shakily, and then steps into Cas embrace.

Cas folds Dean against his chest, and maybe it's the way he's so careful about it, but while Dean had made sure that Sam could draw strength from him, now he lets himself meld a little against Cas. Lets Cas hold him up. It feels so good that it kind of scares him but he also doesn't want it to end.

He feels a little bit at peace.

Curling the fingers of his free hand hesitantly in Cas' trenchcoat, he says, “It's not your fault, Cas.”

Cas' hair brushes against his cheek as Cas shakes his head, “We should have asked you.” His arms tighten around Dean momentarily, and his voice is even rougher than usual when he says, “When we found you—Dean, you were so _sad_. We should have asked you sooner.”

Dean's throat tightens, and he doesn't know what to say to that, because it's true.

Cas finally draws back almost reluctantly, searching Dean's eyes. He looks on the verge of saying something but then appears to lose his courage. All of a sudden, it's awkward, and neither of them seem to know what to do with their hands.

Dean's good leg is starting to ache from holding up almost all his weight, and he sinks back down onto his chair again. Cas sits down as well now, drawing a chair close to Dean's right.

“Dean, out of the three of us you're the only one who has actually met Cain. Is there anything you can remember that might help us fight this?”

Cas is looking at him earnestly. It gives Dean courage and makes him bashful at the same time, self-consciously withdrawing his mangled hands from the table and resting them in his lap.

“Uh—I dunno, he kept bees?”

He chances a look up at Cas, and his features have softened in that way they do when he's almost smiling. It relaxes something in Dean, and he tells Cas all that he remembers, including the things Cain didn't outright say, but that Dean thinks he could read in his silences. In the lonely road and the empty fields leading to his house. In the ring on his hand, and the framed picture of his wife.

Cas must know most of Cain's story already, but he listens attentively. It's strange to just be... _listened to_ , for once.

Dean gets his phone out at some point and texts Sam to tell him to forget about the pizza and pick up some potatoes instead. He's pretty sure they've still got those chicken breasts in the freezer and some vegetable stir-fry. In a weird way, talking with Cas made Dean realize he doesn't want junk food right now. Sam got Dean some after he was cured, and he'd thrown it right back up. Usually, it'd be Dean's go-to for comfort, like booze, or sex. Or hunting, sometimes. It's not like he doesn't know why he's doing what he's doing, then. He knows what sublimation means, and it might as well be his middle name.

Pizza would be the substitute for what he really wants right now, which is a home-cooked meal. He hasn't cooked in what feels like forever and he's nervous he might fail, but on the other hand, screw it. He wants to believe in himself.

Dean's just finished telling Cas how Cain zapped them out of his house and then Crowley left to go snoop around in the Mariana Trench, and it's silent again while Cas seems to brood over the information. The kicker is that the silence isn't even awkward, but Dean still fiddles with his splints in an attempt to channel his nervous energy into something. It's so fucking dumb. Cas has seen him so out of his mind that he didn't recognize him and Sam anymore, and now that they're just sitting here, Dean feels shy?

Except maybe it's kind of a little bit Cas' fault as well. Because when Dean, moron that he is, finally looks up from his hands, Cas is watching him in that knowing way of his.

Dean can feel himself flush, but before he can do anything about it Cas is saying, his voice pitched low like he's making an effort to tread carefully, “I don't want to make you uncomfortable—” Dean almost laughs hysterically at that, because he already is, just probably not for the reasons Cas thinks he might be, “—but I don't want you to keep thinking that you're somehow weaker than Cain. It's true that I don't know him, but from what you told me, he knew that despite being cursed, he was loved. That there was more to him than the Mark on his arm. ”

Dean swallows, stares at Cas, his heart in his throat.

Cas is still regarding him with compassion, but there's a hint of nervousness in his next words, emotion shining through and making him stumble. “When you—” his eyes briefly flicker down to Dean's hands, “You didn't even call for _help_ , Dean. So I—I'm guessing you did not know what. What _he_ knew. And that's our fault, not yours.”

Dean feels like hiding, or maybe crying. Immediately, like a hundred arguments try to crawl up his throat at once—how it _is_ ultimately his own fault for taking on the Mark in the first place, how it was selfish because he wanted to punish himself with it as much as use it to stop Abaddon. How he _is_ weak after all, because he preferred not feeling pain over being human.

Instead, he finds himself saying, “Thanks, Cas.” It comes out rough and brittle, and doesn't feel like enough. But Cas smiles at him, soft and genuine, so maybe he gets that Dean can't say more right now.

>

Dean drags Cas into the kitchen, because those chicken breasts need some time to thaw, and also, he needs something to do with his hands.

Cas mercifully doesn't comment on how it takes them significantly longer than usual to reach the kitchen because of Dean's bum foot, not even when Dean asks his help with getting stuff out of the freezer and the cupboards. Dean almost asks Cas if Metatron happened to zap some _Black Sails_ episodes into Cas' brain, because Silver has a metal peg leg in season three and Dean would really like to talk about something not related to their fucked up lives. But then he remembers that the last ep he watched, Silver went behind Flint's back just like basically everyone else, so no, fuck that dude actually, Dean doesn't want to be associated with him.

He's saved from having to come up with something else to talk about by Sam coming back and dumping the potatoes on the table with a confused frown, as if Dean's never used a kitchen for cooking before. Sam's also brought back a salad for himself with one of those little packages of ready-made joghurt dressing. Dean wonders sometimes if Sam just pretends not to know how much sugar and artificial flavoring goes into that stuff while he berates Dean for binge eating on every opportunity he gets. Just because Dean usually doesn't pay attention to labels doesn't mean he can't read them.

Figuring he's the only one who actually knows their way around a kitchen and deciding he's not going to do all the work on his own for once, he puts Sam on potato peeling duty. He tugs on Cas' sleeve until Cas comes over and lets Dean show him how to keep the stir-fry from getting stuck to the pan. He knows it's not exactly knowledge that must seem all that useful to Cas, but for some reason Cas indulges him anyway.

Soon enough, the kitchen is warm and smells like food. It doesn't help with the persistent ache of the Mark on his arm that is forcing Dean to suppress the constant urge to cover it with his hand, but it still relaxes something in him, at least for the moment.

Cas is watching while Dean puts the food on the table, suddenly radiating doubt. “I can wait in the library or come back later, if you want.”

Dean is so taken aback that it just blurts out of him, “What? Dude, no. You're family.” It doesn't even make sense in the context of what Cas was asking, except maybe it does, because it makes Cas smile again like he had earlier. Like the sun breaking through the clouds. Dean ducks his head and concentrates on sitting down to forget about that embarrassingly hackneyed thought, and also because, you know, bum foot. Sitting down carefully is important.

Cas sits down beside him and even tries some of the food, although all it does is make him scrunch up his face and then sigh in what almost sounds like disappointment.

It's nice and downright domestic for a bit, but since this is Dean's life and he can't catch a break ever, it ends when Sam eyes the way Dean's awkwardly eating with his left because the splints are just not suited for holding a fork.

“Dean, this is ridiculous. I get that you want to feel more in control, I'm all for it, but not like this. Cas is sitting right here! If you'd just quit being so stubborn—”

Dean lets his fork sink and leans back in his seat, struggling to keep the anger at bay that the Mark readily pushes at him. He doesn't want to yell. For all the yelling at each other that they've done over the years, he actually hates it. Especially at the table.

“I'm not saying get fixed up and go right back to hunting,” Sam is saying. “In fact, I don't think you should be hunting at all—”

Dean holds up a hand, finally having enough. “Okay, One? Hunting is the only thing that takes the edge off. And B, we can't just ignore people needing our help, Sam.”

It hurts, having to admit that killing is helping him keep himself sane. It opens the familiar pit in Dean's stomach back up, the one that swallows up his appetite for food and makes him crave hard liquor instead. But Dean fights it, spears some more chicken on his fork and makes himself chew slowly, determined to let neither Sam nor the Mark ruin this meal for him.

Sam sighs audibly, and shoves his only half-finished plate away.

“Dean, would you just—it's not just that you're injured, is that we have to _look at you_ being injured. Did you even think of that?”

“Sam—” Cas utters a warning or maybe an admonishment at Sam, but Dean's barely aware of it. He lets his fork clutter onto his plate and leans forward, resting his head in one hand and taking a deep breath.

“It's _my_ decision. Seriously, after all the crap of last year, you—” He doesn't manage to finish the sentence, but if Sam's uncomfortable silence is any indication, he must understand anyway.

“Okay,” his brother says at length, “Okay, fair. But, Dean—I can't go on hunts with you and, and watch you let yourself get beaten up. I'm not doing that. I won't do that. You don't deserve that. So either you stop doing that, or you're not hunting. Your choice.”

Dean takes his hand away from his face and meets his brother's determined look with one of his own.

“Either or, huh? Yeah, no.” Sam starts to protest, and Dean gets up and limps to the stove with his plate because his food has grown cold over all the arguing. “We're gonna make a compromise,” he says, turning around once the heat is fired up, interrupting Sam mid-sentence. “I stop doing— _that_ ,” he motions vaguely with his mangled hand. It's not like he had planned on continuing like before. It didn't even really work. “And in return—” Dean falters for a moment, unable to hold either Sam or Cas's eyes. He _wants_ to ask them to believe him when he says he's not giving up fighting the Mark, that he's gonna fight the damn thing until he's got nothing left. But it's too much, and he just can't say it. “In return, everything else that concerns the Mark, you'll let me decide how to handle it. _And_ you'll help me with the dishes,” he adds, because that's easier than asking them to let him go once 'handling it' doesn't work anymore.

Both Cas and Sam nod solemnly, but Dean can already see—in the way that Sam looks just a little too relieved and Cas can't quite meet his eyes—that if push comes to shove, they're not gonna keep that agreement.

Dean sighs and turns back around to shut off the heat before his food can burn. He knows a stalemate when he sees one. Everything else, they're gonna have to cross that bridge when they come to it.

>

After he's finished eating, Dean hobbles off to his room while Sam and Cas take care of the dishes as promised.

He falls heavily onto his bed, his body sore all over, the injured areas pounding with pain. For a long time, Dean just sits and stares at his hands. The skin is still bruised and discolored but the cuts have started to heal and his fingers aren't as badly swollen anymore.

At some point, there's a knock on his door. Cas stands hesitantly in the threshold until Dean waves him in.

“Leaving already?” Dean asks, even while he scoots to the side so there's room for Cas to sit beside him.

“Actually, I thought I'd stay until tomorrow morning,” Cas says, sitting down in the space Dean created for him, “Eat breakfast with you.” He smiles tentatively at Dean, who can't help the way he feels himself light up. It's clear that Cas is not actually going to eat, but that doesn't even matter.

Cas says, “I should let you get some rest,” and is about to get up again when Dean takes a deep breath and shifts so his bum foot is on the bed.

He holds his right hand out to Cas, “Just the broken stuff, okay?"

Cas pauses, and then gently takes Dean's hand in both of his. He searches Dean's eyes, “What about the rest?”

Dean looks down at his hand in Cas' grasp and thinks about how much it hurt to slam it into that wall. How deep the stone cut.

How he could barely move them when he woke up in the hospital, and yet, he just used them to cook a meal with his family.

Dean breathes in, and out, and in, and decides to believe.

“It will heal.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Poetry at the beginning is my own.
> 
> Nurse Kim is named after my friend [Kim](http://lost-shoe.tumblr.com/) (with her permission).
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [cuddlemonsterdean](http://cuddlemonsterdean.tumblr.com/)


End file.
